If an exhibit of Edward Burtynsky gets to any museum or gallery near you, go take a look at his 40" by 50" prints. Many of the older prints were made with an enlarger, using colour negative films. His newer prints are often LightJet, though same sizes, and identical enough in quality that it is not possible to tell them from the enlarger prints.
Given Perez, et al testing of large format lenses indicating 60 lp/mm about average achievable with many large format set-ups, a 10x print could still show 6 lp/mm of detail. That falls well within the normal viewer eyesight limits (roughly 5 to 8 lp/mm, depending upon who you ask).
Granted not everyone, nor every lab, is capable of generating good large prints. Whether it is digital capture, enlarger, of film scanner to output, getting high quality large prints is not easy, and often not cheap at the better places. There are great high quality large prints from 4x5, but you just are not going to find them to be that common; I think it is well worth looking, and I have the luck of being near
MOPA, and have seen numerous great large prints.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat Photography
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