And there are several of us old-timers who are still using the Convert-to-Black-and-White-Pro plugin, which, alas, is no longer available. It worked fine in CS2, CS3, and now CS4, and is so versatile and easy to use (especially for someone with many years of B&W darkroom experience), that I still haven't even bothered trying the conversions in LR (which otherwise is my main raw converter now).
The descriptions I have read of using the channel mixer in PS make it sound so ugly, ugly, ugly, that I would never use that. either Silver Efex or LR may be pretty good, but I just don't know.
Eric