Which would you choose given the parameters.....

[Alpha-17]

I also never compared rifle and pistol calibers. I don't know where he got that from.

You absolutely did. Unless there's a line of rifle caliber HSTs out there that neither myself nor Google have ever heard of, you brought up two pistol ammo lines in conjunction with fragmentation being a bad thing. See quote below.

The fact of the matter is that retained weight is king among the criteria for being a prized self defense bullet. You're just not going to find a professional who's going to say, You know what, I like these HSTs and Gold Dots, but I sure wish they would immediately break into a bunch of tiny little pieces immediately upon impact. They were expressly designed NOT to do that, and their ability to stay intact is why pros around the world pay the big bucks for them. I keep mentioning Speer and Federal because they're the current standard everything else is held up to, but pretty much all of the generally respected LE and self defense ammo out there is the same in the sense that retained weight is one of if not the most important criteria going into the design process. If something doesn't retain 80% or more of its weight it's pretty much out of the running.