Which is the best antivirus out there?

I have been asked this question almost everyday by friends, family, colleagues, businesses and a lot of people I bump to. As a security expert, I find this question is not that easy to answer. In my opinion there is no best antivirus software. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Also, I tend not to rely on the various antivirus ratings/comparisons performed by third-party organisations and those found on the internet. Though they do repesent accurate results depending on what testbenches they use, but they do not represent an accurate picture of the overall performance/quality of an antivirus software.

There is so much involved in evaluating an ativirus such as:
1. Detection rates (which most antivirus ratings tend to focus on). For better accuracy, detection rates should depend on the latest or existing malware out there on the internet. It would be pointless to evaluate the detection rate of an antivirus and compare it others using extinct malware samples such as apropos rootkit or even worse using vius samples from the DOS era.
2. Removal capabilities of active malware => an antivirus with a high detection rate does not necessarily mean that it is capable of removing the infection after it detects it. An antivirus would render useless if it is unable to clean or remove a virus it detects. I have seen this quite often with highly rated antiviruses.
3. False positive considerations
4. Memory and CPU resources and Scan times. People will refrain installing an antivirus if it will hog down thier systems regardless on how much you swear this is the best protection.
5. Rootkit, ADS, MBR detection+removal
6. Cleaning malware registry keys. A couple of antiviruses just remove virus files and leaves all associated registry items intact.
7. For businesses: integration with exchange, SAP, sharepoint, file servers, etc. and whatever is required to meet business needs.
8. Dealing with patched system files and file infectors.
9. How quick an antivirus responds to new threats and zero-day malware.
10. Customer experience with thier support system for either businesses or home (Not that important but worth mentioning).
11. Robustness => ideally a malware should not cripple or disable the antivirus or tamper with any of its files.

As a result, you will find the results from one antivirus ratings to another varies at a huge proportions. The top 10 in one rating could be among the last 10 in another rating. For example, NOD32 is rated 3rd best antivirus according to av-comparatives.org. But according, to mtc.sri.com, NOD32 was ranked last from among 30 antiviruses. In AV-test it is ranked 15th.