Also, I'm kind of legitimately curious if your feelings on prominence extend to putting California's mountains above Utah's? After all they have some real prominent mountains that put Utah's to shame, quite a number of them. The Wasatch is great, but prominence isn't super friendly to that range with only 2 over 4k ft prominence.

For the record, I love both Colorado and Utah mountains, grew up hiking in Utah. And the reality is that whether you look by elevation or prominence or whatever you want, there aren't nearly as great mountains back east. Mt Washington sure, Mt Mitchell, but there's just not the same degree of opportunity with so many good hikes as you can find in the rockies.