Speaking as a b/w film photographer, to a digital b/w photographer (maybe a little like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?).
I feel that digital can make great b/w. It get's an unfair bad reputation, because of poor conversions, and even poorer presentations.
Personally, if I want to make b/w digital, I use channel mixer. The RGB sliders (unless I want otherwise), I'll slide around in different portions to make 100% (or I think 200% in some programs?). My favourite method is to shoot in raw mode, then open up the raw images using my rather out dated but open source UFRaw software. I convert using the Channel Mixer there, selecting to generate a monochrome .jpeg. I like to think of the channel mixer as being rather like applying colour tinted lens filters - but post process! Just like lens filters, different colours will affect the b/w image differently. Channel mixers suffice for my needs. If I do shoot in RGB .jpeg, I simply use the Channel mixer in the open source Gimp software package to generate b/w, instead of UFraw.
I'm sure that modern bloatware packages have posher ways to deal with b/w conversion. Doesn't Photoshop and it's ilk have a tool that you can select different b/w tones for different colours?
Going off subject, but following that Queer eye theme again. In my opinion, good digital b/w photographers dedicate themselves to b/w, rather than dabble in it. They may shoot in RAW, or RGB .jpeg, but always with b/w in mind - learning to ignore colour information, and to instead concentrate on lines, subjects, depth, shadows, etc. That I think is the secret behind good digital b/w. In addition, if they share online, they don't mix b/w images up with colour images. They present at least a series of b/w without the visual pollution of colour images. The worse offence (in my lowly opinion), being to put a colour image up next to the same image after a b/w conversion and ask "which is better".