HORSEPOWER VS. TORQUE?

1) How is it that Diesel vehicles which have plenty of Torque on tap VS. Horsepower... are so SLOW when accelerating from 0-60 MPH or 0-100 KM/H? A gasoline/petrol powered vehicle of similar weight with supposedly less torque, but perhaps more horsepower compared to the diesel reaches those speeds much earlier.

2) Also, is it correct that HP & Torque figures provided by car makers with the RPM levels at which those listed numbers were rated or recorded at are the highest peaks of those curves?

(It only makes sense since car makers will always showcase the best possible numbers, why wouldn't they?)

3) In that case, for example, two different vehicles have same HP & Torque figures, EXCEPT one has Lower numbers for the @ X,XXX RPM (let us assume for both HP AND Torque) than the other...is it correct to assume that the one with LOWER RPM numbers accelerate to 60/100 earlier?

4) Is it true that car makers rate the HP/Torque of their cars differently, which essentially results in the reported HP/Torque figures by these car makers forwarded to their marketing departments POINTLESS (incomparable to other cars by other car makers).

I ask this because it seems as though some car makers brag about their cars having "best-in-class" HP (does that even mean anything to the average car buyer, because they hardly ever market best-in-class Torque unless it is for pickup trucks)...so sure, their cars do appear to have better numbers on paper in a side-by-side comparison against others, but then in real life testing?

I suspect that they are free to inflate their numbers somewhat because it is not regulated in the industry. For one thing, as I asked before, they could be relying on more "clever" testing procedures that facilitate those better numbers to be discovered.

Also, they are free to only list the HP/Torque figures, while suspiciously failing to disclose those potentially more meaningful @ X,XXX RPM numbers that may reveal more to the story.

(Even if they do, most consumers such as myself would hardly know what those RPM numbers mean)

5) Lastly, is it generally better to have a car that is: a) About Equal in terms of HP & Torque; b) MORE hp THAN torque; c) LESS hp THAN torque?

(Like, how would a car feel when accelerating from a dead stop in all 3 cases?)

Thank You!