Digital BW, The Print

Do most folks convert color images to B&W via the Channel Mixer?  I 
convert my D100 NEF's to TIF and then use the Channel Mixer but I 
know there're several other ways to do it.  Russell Brown talks about 
using Hue/Saturation Layers.  I've tried that and like it but you can 
only do it in 8 bit mode and I think I see a better print when I keep 
it 16 bit.  Any other ways to keep it as a 16 bit image?

Thanks,

Tom Husband