If you have room for all of them, plant em all and enjoy the faster growing ones as they get big fast and the slower growing ones will in time be worth the wait. I have a BURR oak that grows faster than my 2 Q. Alba's have, BUT, it was a special kind that came from a HUGE acorn that a fellow Garden web person gave me. I have several Red oak family oaks that have grown sorta fast BUT I also have some white oak family oaks that grow about as fast as the red oak family oaks. I think the site they are growing on also matters a good bit also. My 2 Q. Albas are pretty slow growing though, I must say, BUT, everybody has different planting sites. Sometimes with certain trees I do wonder, "is it the area the tree is in, or genetics?" I have 2 Q. Robur's I got at the same time from the same person, and 1 of them has grown like a freakin Jacks Beanstock and 1 has just done "average". Now, the "Beanstocks" place used to have some horse poop near it, BUT, the OTHER Q. Robur is really close to a, area where another but OLDER source of horse poop used to be, I have a shrub there that has been growing like wild in that space from that same soil where we used to have a horse barn for about 25 years, in other words that other Q. Robur that hasn't taken off like the "Beanstock" one has is very close to the area where that OLDER pile of poop was many years ago, and actually, once that Q. Roburs roots get to wandering around I thi nk that IT will also tap into that very rich soil. My "Beanstock Q. Robur was basically planted about 5 feet from where the horse poop pile had been about 10 years before I planted it, so, it surely had a nice amount of rich soil to tap into from the get go, PLUS, it was close to the house and I had surely watered it when it hadn't rained very often. That "Beanstock" Q, Robur has also put out a few acorns as of the last couple of years and it is pretty young, maybe 7-8 years old, that is a guess, I do have a bunch of pics with dates on them, BUT, for now, I'll just guess.

To follow up, I emailed Ken at Oikos Tree Crops (they specialize in selling seedlings) and he said this: ""If the top bud is clipped then a side bud takes over immediately. If the side buds are clipped then a sprout can occur from below the root collar. Whatever happens the tree responds to the energy that is stored in the trunk ( a little on seedlings) and the roots (a lot on small seedling trees). So the energy stored in the roots in the winter is what tells how much growth that first flush of growth is."" I'll probably leave them in the ground and see if they come back, but if I haven't seen a decent recovery by september I'll be replacing them in october. Life's too short to wait for a stunted tree to grow.

how big is big .. how about a pic ... has there been any major earth work under or around the tree in regard to the renovation ken

Thanks! :-) That's pretty normal for these types of trees to put leaves out in various parts of the trunk, so I wouldn't worry about that. If the browning is during the hot weather in mid summer and isn't too severe, I don't know if it's really a problem either. A severe aphid infestation is annoying and if bad enough can affect the leaves to some extent. But really the tree looks quite healthy and In my eyes and there isn't any other obvious problems. Can we have some history. How long has the tree been there? What type of soil is it? Do you provide supplemental water at all? Other than getting enough water I can't think of anything else to say but someone else may come along and chime in with another idea.