When it comes to professional film SLRs the discussion follows a familiar course. People say, with good reason, what excellent cameras they were. Then they get on their high horse about how technology has replaced skill. Then they say a good professional photographer never needed technology. And so the debate follows the same arc of ever more outlandish claims for film that are not born out by the facts.
The facts are that the very people who used F5s professionally are now using D5s. They haven't become worse photographers because they use digital cameras. There was always a small number of professional photojournalists who used Leicas, TLRs and other oddities, but they were very much the exception, particularly from 1970 onwards. The best use of an F5 (or EOS1 or whatever) was nailed earlier in the thread - to allow lens interchangeability from digital to film for a particular look their client may have.