Ah, the wonders of film! While I don't shoot any of the pricey medium or large format stuff, I prefer the look of my black and white 35mm tri-x film over what my digital can give me. The thing is if I'm shooting my film I want to develop it and print it myself and that takes so much time I rarely do it anymore.
I prefered Ilford to Kodak but I used to buy FP4 and HP5 film by the 30 meter roll. I'd shoot thousands of frames a year. I find it ironic that now that it's so cheap and easy to shoot that many pictures I don't bother. My digital camera rarely goes outside and my Nikon film SLRs are what I use. And before you think I'm a technophobe, read some of my other posts here, most of my life revolves around high-tech.
I don't devlop my own films anymore though, as you say it takes too much time and costs a lot more than it used to, I kind of miss it. Have you used any chromagenic films (black and white films that are C-41 process)? I've been really enjoying Ilford's XP2 over the past few years. It costs under $4 to develop at costco with a complete set of proofs and I love the high contrast. I believe Kodak makes one too, though they maybe have discontinued it along with their other B&W films.
I don't really enjoy photography since digital took over. I have 15 year old pictures I remember spending half an hour composing until it's just the perfect shot. Today the technique is just shoot a hundred pics, take the best one, and crop it. I remember when we used to take pride in printing the full frame including sprockets to prove we didn't have to crop.