I would tend to focus my attention and base my comparisons on the assumption that the ingredients are of reasonable quality. When you bring up the topic of oxidation or over-aged hops and whatnot-- you are trying to account for factors you have little or no control over and will only rarely be present.
Besides, how long do you store your hops anyway? And don't you keep them cold? You are focusing on decreasing the likelihood of a bad batch of hops. Personally, I'd rather assume the hops will be good and, if I ever do get a bad batch, I will simply change suppliers. Afterall, let's be realistic here, when we're talking about a "bad batch" we're talking about very minor differences in hop quality. It's not like it will totally ruin a batch. You'll just miss out on 3 or 4 IBU's. That's all. And that's assuming you got bad hops to begin with- pretty unlikely in this modern era of refrigerators and ice packs and oxygen-safe packaging.
So seems to me like the better approach is to focus on the known science of AA extraction and surface area, rather than worrying about something that may never occur to you personally. I think that approach is much more the "play it safe" approach.