labnoti, I very much appreciate the evenhandedness of your posts. I don't agree with you that a 41 Special revolver could have "terminal ballistics on par with the .357 while handling like something closer to the 38 Special", but that is mainly because I don't agree with your point about the stopping power of flat-nosed, non-expanding bullets. There, however, your opinion is at least as good as mine, and probably better, because you seem very well informed. But as any regular reader of these forums knows, handgun stopping power is the subject of FIERCE disagreement, particularly on what constitutes empirical evidence of stopping power.
What the police all over the US are adopting is a cartridge with even lighter bullets than 38 Special +P, with a higher velocity to obtain improved expansion - i.e., 9x19mm. This is the opposite direction from a 41 Special. I agree that it might very well have had some value back in the days before decent expanding pistol bullet designs. This would have been particularly true in a specially chambered version of the Colt Official Police, because, as Lucky Derby points out, the OP was designed for a larger round than 38 Special*. But I think that time has long gone.
But perhaps that means I do agree with your overall point - a 41 caliber cartridge might have been useful for police work, 50 years ago, if it had been a LESS powerful design than the 41 Magnum. The world did not really need a little brother of the 44 Magnum. It did need something better than 38 Special RN, or even 38 Special +P SWC. It's just that thing turned out to be the FBI Load, not 41 Special.**
I apologize if I am quibbling with you unnecessarily.
* The "41" Long Colt round that the Official Police was designed for actually used a .386 diameter bullet, once it was switched from heeled bullets to inside-lubricated bullets. That's a bit short of the .410 of 41 Magnum/Special.
** One of Massad Ayoob's "Greatest Handgun" books has an interesting account of the conflicting advice the San Antonio PD was given by experts in the field, such as Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan, when they were trying to decide on new police revolver around 1970. They were one of the few department to adopt the 41 Magnum, but it was NOT by a consensus of the experts. There was no consensus of the experts.