I made the move to 8x10 from 4x5 a couple of years ago, and had to change my idea of what photographing is in order to do so. My experience may be helpful to you too. At the time, I read a post by Michael Smith on photo.net about hiking and LF cameras, where he basically explained why you need not mix the two (he now uses 8x20 almost exclusively, but did 8x10 work in cities and countryside for decades). I can't find the original posting anymore, but the gist was that photography, and visual art in general, are not concerned w the subject matter depicted, but rather w the way it is depicted. It isn't the fact that you're photographing, say, a waterfall (that takes a half hour to get to on foot) which will make a photograph succesful, but rather how the waterfall (or whatever is in front of you) is seen. If this is true, there's really no need to go out of your way to find "interesting" subject matter, but rather one should be able to make an interesting photograph out of anything. I was already moving in this general direction in my thinking about photography when I found Michael's writings on pnet, but he definitely gave me the final push I needed in that direction. How does this relate to the decision, say, between 8x10 and 5x7? Simple, really, work backwards from the desired result to the means necessary for achieving it, rather than letting the means dictate the result. If you want 8x10 contact prints, get an 8x10 and work within its limitations/possibilities. If you want larger or smaller prints, ditto. First figure out what you want to see as the final result of all your hard work, then find the means to it. And given that you don't need to hike to that waterfall (something I did many times) in order to make a great photograph, the weight of the gear (within reason) shouldn't be the deciding factor.
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