Thank you all for taking the time to comment.
I do miss some of the qualities of film. If you got it right, there could be a kind of graphic profundity about it which I struggled to regain with digital files. Now, I have come to regard the digital photograph as simply a different media, with its own strengths (and weaknesses!)John
That's probably the best way to look at it. It's hard thing to do, though, because old experience keeps chatting away in the background, telling you that her ways were best, and often they were. Not always, by any means, but quite often.
Part of the problem with having had a long past is exactly that: it's a long past. One becomes used to - if not indoctrinated by - what one knows works and the natural thing to do is to try and make the new conform with that. Then, there's also the romance associated with old gear such as your 'blads. I often curse the mid-life stupidity that deprived me of mine, and when I consider the yearning and striving by the younger me just to get to get to the point where the business could justify re-equipping with them, losing them seems even more insane.
In effect, I think we (some of us) have traded away a certain intrinsic quality for mere convenience. Not a wonderful deal, really.
Rob C