I agree with you, but my point was aimed at people who might think that even a couple of thousand dollars would be too much to spend on a film camera, whereas used Xpans (with an unknown electronic lifespan) are commonly selling for in excess of $7k.

Otherwise I fully agree that buying old film cameras is still both the most practical and most fun way to get into the hobby.

My Xpan is now over 25 years old, and I've been doing stuff like this with it for over a decade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIy2_IpEw8c # electronics are still holding strong... for now. They tend to have more mechanical problems than electrical problems in my experience. But yes, I certainly wouldn't spend anything like what they are going for these days.

Albert (the subject of the original article here) is a former colleague and I recently visited him at home where he showed me his studio and the cameras he'd been creating. All very cool stuff.