Hey Chip and John,
Thanks a bunch for the info and advice. I guess one thing I was also concerned with is space in my apartment. It's a fairly small studio place, and I was thinking maybe a liquid or one-shot developer would be nice, but hey, if I gotta mix it up from a powder, then I gotta.
It certainly won't stop me from developing my own film (color film I don't mind handing over to a lab, but black & white I'd much rather do myself).
Chip--
XTOL sounds nice (mixing at room temp is good), and I checked out the Kodak Developer comparison. Looks like XTOL wins!
I checked out Paul Butzi's article comparing TMAX and Acros, and since they're so similar, and since I've been using Acros for a while now already, I'll probably end up testing that with XTOL and see what happens.
John--
I still have a soft spot for D-76. It's the first developer I ever used. Chip's got me curious about XTOL now though, so I think I'm gonna give that a try and see what happens.
Thanks for the suggestion on Minor White's book. I found it on Amazon for cheap, so I'm gonna add it to my collection of Zone System books (four of 'em so far, that I can remember). I'm completely fascinated by the Zone System. And I think I might actually have Kodak's Darkroom book somewhere... with me there's no tellin'.
Thanks for your help guys! Once I'm able to test some things out I'll post back here how things go.
Sam