I think a lot has to do with the usage of the images also. When I was shooting MF film in the studio for portraits, products and stuff like that, it was all about image quality, lighting, nuance, etc. Sure, one could do the same with smaller format, but the overall results were not the same. The deliberateness of composition and such seemed much more useful with the larger format.
On the flip side, there are times when no matter how fast you and your gear are, MF is just not the right tool. I did a portrait shoot this past weekend. It was of a little girl whose mom wanted to "capture that specialness". (I was not quite sure what she meant, and she could not explain it.....sort of like "I will know it when I see it" type thing.) We shot at their ranch. Wound up hitting 6-7 different locations on the ranch, and including a menagerie of animals, mostly horses ranging from a Clydesdale to miniature ponies and donkeys. I think each setting could have benefitted from using MF to capture more (more what, I am not too sure, except DR and file detail for enlargement mostly), but it would have been nearly impossible to get many of the fleeting moment shots when everything, especially the cast of characters got lined up in a creative and attractive way. I brought my M8 along, but never even took it out of the bag. Wound up shooting everything with a 1DsMkII, and it was not fast enough for some of the things I needed to capture. I was not "blazing away", but moving just a bit and recollecting light, angle, background, and most importantly, the child's instantaneous expression changes. No way that I could capture all of that with anything MF at this point.....both from equipment and my shooting capabilities perspectives. Just way too much going on.
Turns out, mom was looking for a couple nice shots for use on a Christmas card. What would be the value of MF for that situation? None. However, knowing this client well enough, there will be shots that will turn into large canvases, bigger prints, and stuff like that, hence my shooting with the 1DsMkII, because those files do hold up nicely in many respects.
The point I think I am trying to make is that one can capture very artistic stuff with almost anything, but some set-ups may actually work against you for time, speed, mobility, range, etc. Trust me, I would have loved to have set up with tripod, lighting, and even some props for many of the shots, but it was just not going to happen at the number of locations, the limited shooting window for good light, and the rapidly diminishing attention span of the subject, not to mention all those nearly unmanageable "extras" in many of the shots. So, to me, it does matter what your final delivery is to be. If I was doing this for myself and for my "art", I would have gone with a lot fewer locations, spent more time for a lot fewer shots, and may have caught one or two stunning looks. That would be more than satisfying. But the situation demanded something different, yet still requires great image quality for a multitude of uses. (This is why I am getting more psyched for the potential that the Leica S2 may be able to deliver.)
Just my thoughts and recent experiences.
LJ