Digital BW, The Print

My question is about the scanning negatives, but since the end goal is to get the best B&W 
print, I thought I'd raise the question here.  I hope this is not considered too far OT.

I'm shooting a couple of test rolls of XP2 Super with the idea of getting away from film 
processing and taking advantage of Digital ICE.

Rather than scan as grayscale, I scanned (Nikon 4000ED) in RGB, then converted to Lab 
and discarded the color channels.  I did this to get rid of any effects of the background 
mask.  This resulted in an image that required gentler tonal corrections than if I had 
scanned in grayscale.

I can do some extensive testing, but I thought I'd tap into the combined wisdom of this 
group first.

So, have I stumbled onto a well-known procedure, or does it make little or no difference 
which route one takes in the scanning step.

Also, any comments on the relative merits of Ilford vs. Kodak chromogenic film would be 
welcome.  TIA

Harry Lockwood