What I don't understand are your other examples. For example, you are complaining about poor high iso performance. While it is true that the IQ180 is not a low light marvel, wouldn't the use of noise reduction software mitigate the noise down to a tolerable level? I have a camera that is supposed to be even worse by low light (an H4D-50) and my experience is that the noise reduction in Phocus (Hasselblad software) works very well. It reduces sharpness, of course, but because the camera starts with more pixels than a D800/A7r, I may even get better results in prints nevertheless.
In my work, I would have to say, no, that noise reduction can't help that much on the CCD cameras, mainly because in low light they can't really get the data in the first place, and instead you see a lot of mushy details. This is true at base iso, to some degree, but if you push the iso at all, say 200 or 400, those areas in shade will just not have much details. You also start to see color issues mainly loss of saturation at iso 200 and by 400 you have color issues and loss of finer details, the chip just doesn't work well when at that setting. You will still see the detail loss even in bright light and to some degree color loss. All noise reduction does is blur it more and add even more mush to the areas in question. Also note, that Phase One's default noise reduction tends to be a bit too much even at iso 50 and you can see it effecting finer details, I almost always turn it way back.
If you instead bracket, so that you have good exposure times to cover those areas in shadow then the CCD can do an excellent job. And if you are on a DF or DF+ bracketing is very easy albeit last time I check the exposure allowed between brackets was only 1 stop and you could only do 3 brackets, neither of which is enough most times.
The exception to this is is use of sensor plus, which does a great job on these parts of images. And on the 180 @ 20MP for SPlus you have still got a lot of image to work with and in most cases can make a perfect print unless you looking for something in the 40 x 60 range.
I have worked with MFD since early 2008 and as I look back on images I used to be proud of I have realized that my technique was to pretty much take these areas down to pure black, and for me now, I don't like that look as there were details there.
I have seen daily the effect that shutter time can make on a CCD image as the more light the better. Here is a screen shot from C1 of a iso50 IQ260 image, the image on the left is 1/4 of a sec, the one on the right is 1 sec. Look at the grasses behind the dogwood tree leaves, (red) and on the 1/4 sec image it's basically mush (shadows were pushed) and on the 1 second image there is much more detail, plenty to allow this part of the image to become useable. Both images have the same amount of shadow push, it's just that the 1 sec to me has a lot more details. One of the strong points of shooting a MFD back is for high resolution and capture of details, at least I am. If I have just left off at 1/4 sec I would have left a lot of those details on the table. These crops are from the right edge of a 15mm shift from a 40mm Rodie. So again, movements, mean less available light to start with which automatically puts a CCD at a disadvantage as they prefer light and not push.
It's simply a situation where one needs to evaluate based on their shooting style and needs. For me, I should have done more homework on the IQ260, before I purchased it.
Paul