Jitterbug,
I understand your frustration. I've always wished (naively) there was a reliable standard sort of conversion for Pantone solids to Process CMYK... it would make things so much easier. But, I understand why that's not the case.
Pantone inks are meant to be special colors that can't quite be hit by a simple CMYK mix. They are typically out of the the CMYK color gamut. What this means is that there are only so many colors that can be faithfully represented by using just CMYK.
The inconsistency has to do with how far out of the CMYK gamut the Pantone is. Some are closer than others. The closer they are to the CMYK color gamut they are the easier it is to simulate using just CMYK (you need to be careful to not surpass a certain amount of ink coverage in doing so, though). Some colors you just won't hit, though, so you have to settle for getting as close as possible and that's a matter of opinion.
As for the conversion inconsistency between applications that's a good question. They might just not care because it's not going to be exact no matter how you convert the color. However, it would be nice if Adobe would at least keep it consistent throughout their software.
The only way to find a good conversion value (IMHO) is to color correct. That's what we do when we need to simulate a Pantone used in one of our printed products in a CMYK catalog/mailer etc. In order to do that you should have color managed proofers running special icc profiles and have a reliable Pantone source to compare your converted output to. Even then you should have special lighting so that you can view the two side by side correctly. Also you have to take into account the type of paper the final product will be printed on since paper color affects the overall appearance of color... that's what the icc profiles do... simulate the paper color etc. No matter how white you think your paper is it's going to be at least a bit darker than what you see on screen.
Well, enough of my convoluted explanation. I hope it helps you more than it confuses you.
~Soilworker
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