So it seems that nikons offering of the 10-20 is generally disliked. It's super cheap comparatively, so the penny pincher in me is dissapointed, but I suppose good glass can last just about forever.

So, in my online review scouring, it seems that the 11-16 is much more widely used than the 11-20. The 11-20 also has reports of auto focus issues, while I am yet to find anyone with anything even remotely poor to say regarding the 11-16.

Now, tamron also offers a 10-24 F3.5/4.5, which has little traction is seems in the way of actual hands on use. It seems priced in with the tokina, and could be a valuable bridge to my soon to be three lens set up of a 10-XX, nikon 24-120, and Tamron 200-500.

Any input on which direction to go? Body is a 7200. Sorry for spamming so many threads as of late, I have just officially caught the camera bug and am trying to do this right the first time.

I'd go with the 11-16. I've never really heard anything bad about it and the availability of the 2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range is more valuable than the little bit more zoom the Tamron gives. I doubt that you'll notice that 8mm missing from your range.

I've had both.  Got the 11-16 because that's all they had at the time.

In a moment of utter stupidity and loss of gross motor skills I broke it (flung camera across room by accident) and replaced it with the 11-20, as the repair cost would be an appreciable part of the cost of a new one.

The 11-20 has some documented softness/blur issues in the corners of the frame, particularly at 11mm, but other than that it's fine.

It vastly improves the flare reduction over the 11-16 (the 11-16 has severe flaring if the sun is anywhere near the frame).  Still some flare, but a heck of a lot less.

11-16 samples:
Sunset 20170220 by FredMan, on Flickr

Alae Cemetery Monkey Pod Perspective by FredMan, on Flickr

11-20 samples:
Lightning Rainbow 20180514 by FredMan, on Flickr

Approaching Cell 20180531 by FredMan, on Flickr

In the final analysis you'll be very happy with either.