Digital BW, The Print

I currently have a good film scanner but not a flatbed. I'm
considering buying a 1200 dpi flatbed to make contact sheets of 35mm
b&w negs. My thinking is that since I'm not resizing the scan and 1200
dpi is already greater than the Epson driver native resolution,
nothing would be gained by a higher rez scanner. I'll just invert the
scan in Photoshop and output to my 1280 or 890. 

Could I expect to get any useful detail in a contact sheet just by
ordinary frontlighting the negs in a cheap flatbed?

Any other suggestions for bridging this weak link in my process?

Bob Michaels