Digital BW, The Print

Reading through some recent posts concerning scanning workflow, I 
find that there seems to be some disagreement or uncertainty 
regarding the merits of scanning B&W negatives in RGB mode. Has there 
been any systematic investigation of this area? In my own scanning of 
35mm negs (SS4000 12bit, to 16bit in PS) I have not seen enough of a 
difference to warrant saving and working with the larger RGB files. 
But perhaps I'm missing something.

Chris Hargens