In an AVERAGE game situation/set up in chess, would you rather have....

• 2 Rooks or 1 queen? / Vice Versa                     Why?
  

• 3 Minor pieces or 2 rooks? / Vice Versa            Why?
  

• 3 pawns or a minor piece? / Vice Versa            Why?
  

• 2 Minor pieces or a rook? / Vice Versa              Why?
  

Now, for those who can't fathom imagining an average set up...what would you rather have in the start of a match? Or how about in the Endgame? Any situations in particular where you would want one set of pieces more then the other?

Thanks ahead of time for those that respond to this -- and for those critics out there, please try to restrain your criticism of this question to a minimum.

Hm, well...it depends.

Two of the choices are fairly straightforward:  2 rooks are simply worth more than a queen, and ditto with 2 minors vs a rook.  Now as for the others...

I'd say 3 pieces are about equal to two rooks--but I'd probably tend to favor the pieces in any situation except some endgame where the rooks have viable (and threatening) passed pawns to push.

As for 3 pawns vs the piece...early on, I'll take the piece.  As it gets closer to the endgame, I'll lean more and more toward the pawns (we're assuming of course that they're not tripled pawns or some such calamity).

And to finish, I'll repeat:  the most important thing with any discussion like this is, it all depends.