Again, thank you for the comments!
The comments so far seem to bear out my OP. Specificaly that both are well built, but the pointing ability of the Freedom is a weakness.
Speciald - thank you for the observation about the main. I hadn't though of that!
From the comments, it seems that the Pearson is the better
SAILboat, despite the fact that they went out of business in '92 (strange that they hold their value better
).
Has anyone sailed both?