The beauty of largeformat is the ability to do contact printing with minimal equipment, and if, if you are good and have vision, can get darn good results. There still exists plenty of "magic bullets" in large format though. Take the 110xl schneider lens. Its a great lens, one that I used for about a year, until I realized that I really really hated the focal length. I bought it because of the hype, which is true for the most part, but I sold it and now I only have 1 lens for my 4x5 gear. I find I can do most things I want in 4x5 with that lens.

I also shoot 35 with pentax gear, which in and of itself is dangereous when it comes to internet forums. I don't know how many times I hear that "pentax sucks because it doesn't have professional level cameras" coming from people with canon or nikon gear strapped around them with the largest damned "is that a tree stump in your pants or are you just happy to see me?" glass I have ever seen, and there still in college. No pentax doens't make an F5 camera, but they do make capable cameras.

In general, I think it is more important to look at images, study light, composition, design and have people critique your shots. This is something that I really need to work on to become a better photographer.