Your comparison between digital and film and digital is deeply flawed, and obviously NOT based on any actual comparisons. Digital capture, even from a camera with a Bayer sensor, is much better pixel-for-pixel than a film scan due to film grain. A 6MP Canon 10D will beat a 3000x2000 scan of 35mm film at the same ISO, and that's with a sensor several generations old.
I've used digital before and I can't stand the way it handles falloff, fringing, bokeh, pixellation, moires, and most of all, the noise if you shoot at faster speeds. Oh, and it stinks for black and white compared to good film. Though Digital IS loads easier, I'll admit. And you can tweak with it afterwards.*
For 35mm, Digital is getting closer to replacing it in terms of resolution and quality(maybe another 8-10 years, which isn't much at all, considering), but for medium format, it's nowhere close. Well, there is an option or two for decent digital backs(40MP Leaf), but I'm not paying 20k+ for one.
Concerning the printers, you missed my point. If all you get is 2000*3000 for 35mm or 3000*3000 for 6x6, then it's of course going to be vastly worse than even a basic home scanning setup, where 4800DPI is now common.(10K DPI+ in each dimmension for 6x6). That's why digital printing tends to stink - at least at the labs. Because the film gets scanned at a horrendously low resolution and then messed with by the internal software.
A good digital camera will of course blow this away, because it bypasses the cheap internal scanner. Apparently if you print at home, you can do much better than the labs. This was one of my questions elsewhere. I found out that need to do it at home since the labs are using inferior technology aimed at speed versus quality.
Yes, digital printers have better resolution, but that means an immense amount of data as well. And, the software you are using had better be perfect. If your digital camera only has 8MP, well, you're going to quickly run out of real estate before the software has to make some pretty drastic adjustments and filling in as it gets larger.
With film, a 100MP scan gives a *tad* more information, which is why I'll probably end up doing it this way. Film, a scanner, and a printer. It looks like I'll have to probably bypass dye-sub for now, though, and start looking at inkjets.
In any case, this forum has been very helpful. I've pretty much decided on one of three 6*4.5 cameras, I have the scanner down to 2-3 choices, and that leaves the printer, which looks like a large inkjet. I like dye-sub, but the technology has issues and it's not fully mature, while inkjet seems to have evolved more quickly.
*technically, once you scan film, you can alter it as well like digital - just with 200-500MB of data per print, there's a lot more room for error