Ah Alex, know exactly what you mean. I was a 24/7 astrophotographer in the 80's only to get side tracked by the desire to become the worlds strongest man...
When I returned to Astronomy in 2002 I tried film photography with off axis eyeball guiding again, because that was all I knew. I had purchased an LX200 12" GPS and Lumicon Giant Easy guider and was going for it in a "locked in the 80's" fashion...it was hard work, with reasonable results I guess but not what I wanted (no fun guiding a 1hr exposure with your eyeball glued to the guide eyepiece, while standing!) . Then I was shown a starlightxpress CCD camera by Dave Higgins and I was hooked. I had to get my head around autoguiding, quantum efficiency, LRGB processing etc etc...but boy has it been a wonderful journey to where I am today
Like you have suggested, the experienece with film photography (film processing and darkroom - the works!) really helps and the steps I have made in imaging improvements have much to thank from my painstaking raw, in the field camera capture, film and darkroom development and printing experience I am sure.
Look forward to your future work
The above Lagoon is a great start back!!...imagine getting that back in 1980..??
Mike