Photographers in general choose smaller formats for digital than for film, due to both smaller differences in quality and larger differences in price when you compare the same two formats in digital rather than film. (The 2/3" digital sensor format is only 6.6x8.8mm. Imagine comparing 8"x10" prints from a tiny 6.6x8.8mm piece of film to ones from 35mm film: the quality difference would be far greater than comparing such prints from 2/3" to 24x36mm digital formats.)
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I have no argument with this - I never said that smaller sensors were a bad thing in general. They have a benefit for long-lens photography, which is why I'm keeping my 10D. OTOH, they are not so good for wide-angle photography. OK, new lenses with smaller image circles can, and have, been made to address this problem.
My personal reason for prefering larger format sensors is DOF issues. I like the DOF associated with the FF 35mm sensor size and to make up for the larger DOF on APS sensors, lenses need to be 1-2 stops brighter - this means that we'd need lenses with a maximum aperture of f/1.0 or f/0.5 - this seems very unlikely to happen in the near future, and even if it did these lenses would be so large and heavy as to make arguments of "smaller & lighter" regarding APS sensor cameras a complete joke (not to mention the probable lousy edge/corner performance of these super-bright lenses).
This, then, was my own personal reason for wanting FF in my dSLR. Canon provided one, and I bought it. This doesn't mean that I'm campaigning for Canon to drop their 1.6x crop range - not at all! I'd be more than happy for them to continue both lines, which is what I believe that they will do. Sales are not so high with FF because these cameras still cost many times more than the top-of-the-range film cameras of the recent past. As costs come down - which they will - more & more people will buy into FF. APS likely won't die out though - why should it? For those who like telephoto lenses, APS are the way to go (even I can see that!).
Now, as for medium format, it has been shrinking (in terms of market share), that is true... but digital has been a major reason for that happening. Supplying digital backs - ones that real people can actually afford to buy - will beging to turn things around. In the same way as with dSLRs, I'm more than happy for smaller sensors to start the ball rolling. But, for me, cropped sensors on M.F. do not have the advantages they do in dSLRs - I'm not interested in shooting long telephoto shots on my Hassy, not one bit! And, as I mentioned about, I am fond of the characteristic DOF associated with 6x6 format, and shooting with a 50mm lens on a 4x4 sensor will give very different results indeed in terms of DOF - unless they are going to provide us with f/1.0 lenses for reasonable prices?
The advantage with medium format is that the digital backs need not be made by the camera manufacturer. I mean, if Canon got into the digital back game, pricing their backs down through profits earnt through dSLR slaes, then this would start the ball rolling. Of course these sensors will be expensive. But the economy of scale will bring prices down. The question remains though:
Is digital medium format already dead in the water? If the companies think it is, then it will never happen. If it does get going, prices will come down in time - as the market share is so small at present, prices will come down in price much more slowly than we've seen in the dSLR market. So be it. As long as digital backs stay above my maximum affordable price, I will not buy one. Perhaps I will stick with film for medium format - hopefully, the films will still be available in this case. As far as 35mm format goes, I've given up on film as digital gives me all that I want. I'd like to go digital with M.F. too, but not at all costs, and a 4x4 sensor seems to me to be more of a curiosity than anything else (if 4x4 becomes 'cheap' enough then I probably would buy one because I like gadgets: for me, a 4x4 sensor cannot be much more than a gadget, no matter how well made it is).
So you see, I'm not holding my breath. I'll continue shooting with my 5D (I hardly ever pick up the 10D now - perhaps it's for emergency use only!) and forget about digital M.F. - if it comes on the market in my price range, then I'll look again. Personally, I think we will see it, eventually (yes, that is my personal opinion and mere speculation only) - you see, it doesn't matter to me if I'm right or if I'm wrong. But I'm stating in public that I want a 6x6 sensor. If nobody says anything regarding what they want, the companies might be silly enough to think that nobody wants these things at all, and then we certainly will not see them. It harms nobody when I say that I want 6x6 and that if they provide it at a cost I can afford then I will buy it. If I'm proved wrong, so what? If I'm proved right, so what? Let's wait...