I am slowly navigating my way through the maze of developer choices. Feel lucky we have so many! Based on my limited (always learning) experience, most people would benefit from always having 3 choices on hand:
- Regular everyday developer for most situations. The normie.
- Speed boosting developer for pushing. The pusher.
- High detail developer. The sharpie.
Storing three separate solutions isn't practical for most though, especially if shooting infrequently. In terms of developer choices, I am very happy with Xtol as the normie. All films look either amazing or good in it, Xtol keeps well and it offers protection against over-cooking.
Microphen is my pusher of choice mainly for the convenience of 1L packs that facilitates infrequent use. Developing Delta 3200 in anything else is a tragedy IMO.
For the sharpie, I'm on the fence between Ilfosol 3 and Rodinal. Rodinal lasts forever and its grain is slightly more dense, but Ilfosol 3 offers a wider range of tones in an image and adds something special to the overall look that I can't put my finger on. If my experiment of storing Ilfosol in AstraPouch bags succeeds, it will be the winner.
I will conclude by re-iterating that using Xtol for everything all the time is also a fine idea.