I'm really really trying to avoid the processing at home route, I don't have the time to teach myself pro level processing from scratch, I'm shooting LF for a specific project albeit on that will take years, I'm not looking to make it a hobby where I will have the time and money to experiment and get things wrong.

I'm going to be bringing a Epson 4990 with me when I come in December, you would be welcome to use it though I doubt you will be happy with the results for 35mm film at least.

Having used one of the best 'in lab' scanning services in the UK (Imacon 848) I have learnt from experience that you a) have to be able to talk to the guy scanning and establish a relationship b) tell them exactly what you want. I was getting work back that was really medicore until I told him to scan at max resolution, no sharpening, a nice flat scan in 16 bit without either side clipping. That way I could do all the post work myself with a file that actually had all the information needed for me to express my interpretation of the picture, not the labs interpretation. The moment they are applying changes to the file you lose the ability to manipulate. If they decide where to put the blacks then the information in those blacks won't be there in sufficient detail when you want to pull them up, etc, etc.

Here is a great example, I told them to scan the neg as flat as possible in 16 bit then I worked on it. The result is far better than the original scan they made where they did the manipulation 2 years ago, far more detail in the blacks, far better definition of the clouds, etc. Please excuse the horrible jpg compression.