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Hi Jon,
It's an interesting question and one I've pondered myself... I can understand that there is a theoretical benefit for imaging in 12/16bit - but on the few occasions I've tried at the higher bit depth I didn't notice any appreciable difference. That's not to say there isn't any difference, it's just that there certainly wasn't anything to my eye that would make this a priority.
To prevent blown highlights, I set my gain / capture frames with a very careful eye on the histogram. As a rule, I never want to go above 50%. For a wider (full moon) image, I drop it even more as there are often some crater rims or other bright features that are like to blow out. After stacking in AS!4 and wavelets in RS6, I save as a 16Bit Tiff file just in case I want to play with the histogram a in PS. If you use the histogram as your guide you won't blow highlights, irrespective of what bit depth you're shooting at.
Regarding frame rate - if you're imaging the full moon and using the whole sensor, reality is the frame rate will be slow. That's not a problem since very fine detail is not a priority. If you want too do long fl close-ups you will use a much smaller ROI and take advantage of much faster frame rates and look to capitalise on those moments of exceptional seeing so you can extract every bit of detail. Just my 2c...
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