Yes, and that's really frightening me! Now we musicians are living in a computing business world too...*AAAARGH*

Okay, we have to live with so many things that we don't really need but the wheels of time keep on turning. At least I hope that the resistance of us musicians will grow again to the point where the factories have to raise with us.
I remember the days when the PA systems turned to transistors (long after it was done for HiFi systems). After a short while the musicians started to want back their warm sounding tube amps. I'm very glad about that fact!

You're loosing dynamics with 16/44.1 because you're mixing it down digitally. The digitally inaccuracy is the devil! Higher bit resolutions and higher sample rates do minimize this effect but never do reach towards analog resolution - it's only a digital imitation of the nature! So, we can get better results by using analog technologies especially for the audio mixes.

Personally, I like to mix analog and digital devices in my studio because it provides me a bigger range but, analog devices are still having a great PLUS in my decicions...
Regards, Danny