It has been realized for a long time that knowing the eta and eta wave functions in terms of quark and gluon components probes our understanding of non-perturbative QCD dynamics. Great effort has been given to this challenge -- yet no clear picture has emerged even with the most recent KLOE data. We point out which measurements would be most helpful in arriving at a more definite conclusion. A better knowledge of these wave functions will significantly help to disentangle the weight of different decay subprocesses in semi-leptonic decays of D^+, D_s^+ and B^+ mesons. The resulting insights will be instrumental in treating even non-leptonic B transitions involving $eta$ and $eta^{prime}$ and their CP asymmetries; thus they can sharpen the case for or against New Physics intervening there.
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