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Anonymous
The known working lens designs are all optimal at the same few focal lengths. Look at element diagrams, and they'll reveal big similarities in all the brands. True Sonnar type lenses are best at 50 and 85mm, so that's why pre-war Zeiss Sonnars are those lengths (Newer ones aren't actually Sonnars, so there's a much bigger range of focal lengths they cover). Tessars work with pretty much every length longer than 50mm (35mm with modern glass formulas), so you can find Tessars up to 300mm - but one limitation of the Tessar design is that they never go faster than f/3.5. Since the Tessar design is a good performer and pretty cheap otherwise, that's why most companies had cheap long lenses (200/4) that were almost identical Tessar (four elements, three groups) designs, as well as identical slow kit standard lenses (CZ Tessar 3.5 for Contax, Leitz Elmar 3.5 for Leica)
SLRs became popular as the Planar design for standard lenses became popular. Fast Sonnars tend to be f/1.5, so you can often recognize an old lens by that speed. Planars, on the other hand, are either f/1.4 or f/2, and back then they seemed to work better at slightly longer lengths (hence all the 55 and 58 kit lenses of the first SLRs)
The Nokton in OP is a conscious copy of an old Tokyo Kogaku lens that CV released with permission in conjunction with a new Topcon. That's why it's got the really normal symmetrical Planar design and the longer length. It probably gives a similar "look" as the old lens too.
I think I started rambling there, but I hope the gist gets through.
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