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Mike,
I found when doing my commercial portraiture my prints were life-sized or close to it. The reason for this is so I could place the photo side by side with my canvas a get further back. This method helps immeasurably with form and enables a looser more fluid brush stroke. With a print as small as 8x10 you practically have to be on top of your canvas. Most professional portraiture now and in the past, especially in the high end is life-sized.
Right now I am working on a canvas from life. It is life-sized. my model had to return to college so I took some reference shots. The head print, of just her neck and shoulders is 12x18 alone. I need a slow speed film, exactly the ones you mentioned to be able to get a decently saturated print. A faster film or its equivalent in a digital file just would not do. I have researched this and have been holding off getting a digital for just this reason. I am interested in the Nikon with a 12 megapixel capacity, because the labs who do my printing told me to get the kind of quality I need, I would need at least an 11 megapixel quality. I don't expect Mischa to run out and get this $5000 baby, but he could do with faster lenses.
Any reasonably priced digital camera should be able to give you an 8x10 print, but for professional portrait painting, in my opinion, you need larger reference and a slow lens such as the one on his new Nikon is not going to cut it. It is alright only as a beginning lens but for really upper end portraiture it is, I would dare to say, it is barely adequate.
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