Something I've been thinking about (since I've been going through my U2 boots with the new tour starting):
I think PopMart gets a really bad rap because of its embarrassingly rocky first leg. Once it swung into motion, though, it sounded great. The visuals were far too big and dwarfed the band for the most part, but in spite of that, the tour had some amazing moments.
The Sarajevo and Santiago shows aren't just tour highlights, they're career highlights. There's a certain honesty behind all the awkward attempts at irony. You know that part of ZooTV in between "Running To Stand Still" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" where you hear the babel of television voices but through it all the rising synth intro of "Streets" is breaking through like a beam of light and by the time Edge's guitar starts to ring in, you know the jig is up, sincerity has won over irony? That's like an aural metaphor for PopMart. The humility was good for them.
The Elevation Tour was a welcome return to simplicity, but there was almost more showmanship. Bono's speeches have this rehearsed spontaneity that's charming but ultimately distant. I hate to draw the comparison and dumb this down into "Pop versus ATYCLB Part 213873784387587," but I thought the dichotomy was interesting. Note that there were tons of truly human and meaningful moments in the Elevation Tour too (moments that simply wouldn't have been possible on a stadium tour like PopMart), but PopMart had its own qualities that seem to be overlooked.
It rocked too.
Anyway, I think ZooTV was their most interesting tour, but you really don't need more than one or two ZooTV boots, do you? It was pretty much the same thing over night, so you just need to find a boot that has good sound quality and a consistent performance, and then maybe you grab another one from another leg for a slightly different setlist. For ZooTV, you pretty much only need the widely circulated Dublin and Sydney boots (both from the second nights, I think).
Lovetown was king for setlist variety, and the band was so incredibly tight during that period.
PopMart didn't have much setlist variety, but many of the shows are special in other ways (e.g., the aforementioned Sarajevo and Santiago shows, plus things like Bono's performance of "One" for Michael Hutchence in Mexico City or maybe the first show in Las Vegas merely for the horror of it all), so it's still worth collecting more than a few boots of.
Elevation had better variety than PopMart, though not as good as their eighties heydey, and a lot of the shows were just undeniably fun (like the Providence show on Larry's birthday). My main complaint is that I don't like Bono's voice on this tour.