The D800, a case for the higher resolution

I am a long time Nikon shooter and I (self admittedly) try an capture the best technical images I can.  I agonize over every lens and body trying to capture the the most I can with the equipment I can afford.  I read the lens reviews and compare the resolving potential of each lens and make painful compromises in balancing sharpness, bokeh, contrast, flare resistance, CA, focus acquisition speed, distortions, price and the like in lens purchases, and likewise, hypothetical sensor performance, dynamic range, moire management, feature set, price, etc., in body purchases and readily accept that all acquisitions represent a series of compromises.  Once in a while, however, a revolutionary product is revealed that dramatically alters the long held benchmarks and accustomed industry standards.  Enter the much maligned D800 and its polarizing 36mp sensor.

I have been reading threads here for a couple of weeks now where many experienced photographers have been promoting the idea the shooting a D800 is not advantageous and bodies with less resolving power would be better tailored for a given set of shooting circumstance or shooter mandated criteria.  I am having some serious difficulty assimilating how such guidance could be accurate (with respect to sensor performance), given both the empirical evidence the appears to contradict these assertions (DXO labs,etc) and my own quixotic observations that likewise suggest that whether upsizing or downsizing, the sensor capable of resolving more lines of resolutions will always provide a qualitatively superior starting point, as a blank canvas, to begin the journey from initial capture, to the artist's vision of what the image could become.  For the sake of academic discussion, I am proposing to deliberately throw out the miscalibrated AF issues that could skew the data exhibited by some early adopters of the D800 and "focus" on why anyone would deliberately desire to capture less information from their image than what they otherwise could with a higher capacity sensor.

Many here have advocated purchasing bodies with less resolution in their native raw files are desirable over the higher capacity D800.  They refer to workflow efficiency and file management and other well reasoned and articulate arguments in support of their conclusions, but I contend that, in an era where processing power and memory is so nominally accessible, compromising detail and flexibility in their original captures is extremely short sighted.

I would love other thoughts on this as I marvel at the possibilities the D800 files promise to provide,  Even if, for now, I am only scratching the surface of what is possible with versatility of what the sensor is capable of providing.

The question remains why would anyone recommend a body that delivers less native resolution?  I would like to know because it seems so counterintuative to me when we spend our resources so freely in acquiring the finest optics we can afford.  To then deliberately compromise the lenses available resolution by electing to use bodies incapable of taxing their potential for substantially greater performance appears self negating.

--
Chad Gladstone