christo™
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Geez, dhphoto, "ultimate quality" is quite the qualifier. I don't think anyone could seriously argue that you can't get excellent quality either way. It's a matter of what software you have and are experienced with, the time you want to spend, and where you spend it. If one doesn't have PS7, or hasn't spend the appreciable amount of time it takes to get up to speed with it (and, more so, efficient with it), I don't think there is any question that C1 is the way to go. On the other hand, if you are fully up to speed with PS7, and have a toolkit of plugins for it, I don't think it matters what converter you use, you can always tweak in PS to render that extra little something. As examples I give the plug-in version of NeatImage and n-level hand sharpening, added touches that can be done in PS that no converter offers.
Aside from one's status with PS, I think it matters a whole lot what you shoot and what you do with the pictures. When I am shooting for enjoyment (my kids, macro, whatever), I tend to shoot relatively sparingly, and discard 90 percent of those shots, and only bother with a few that of those . I then convert using BB and handwork each photo using PS. I spend a fair amount of time on each photo, and usually print at 8"x10".
When shooting portraits, I use the same process. Just not that many keepers.
When shooting events, I usually end up with 150-500 photos, and then there is no way I'm going to spend that kind of time per photo. I do a quick two pass to discard the muffed shots using BB (first pass to get rid of stupid stuff, second getting picky about photos of people of which I know I have several good shots), then just use the quckie features of BB to generate HTML with a couple templates I made to burn picture CD-R's (and/or ULEAD's DVD PictureShow software). That's working straight from the JPEG's for speed, with the minimal enhancements BB offers. I then handwork ordered prints as above. C1 might deliver slightly better looking proofs, but the batch limit is too painful, and while BB is slow it converting RAW files, it simply rocks when your JPEGs are good enough for the job -- that baby cranks out a simple HTML presentation of the JPEGs of hundreds of pictures in minutes flat.
I've experienced two uses for which I feel I would be better off with C1: two trips to the zoo and an extended family vacation. Both generated too many "keeper" pictures for me to want to do a hand work-up in PS on all of them, yet I believe I could get better "out of the converter" results with C1 than BB, mostly because of the better color rendition and sharpening.
All the above said, I must say I'm sitting on two jobs, my last trip to the zoo, and an extended family vacation in Northern Wisconsin, which I really wish I had developed and posted to the family (I have a Ceiva frame at both grandmonthers's and one grandfather's house, and usually send prints to the West Coast relies). If I were using C1, I'd probably be done with those by now as I wouldn't be facing the kind of PS time they will require in my current workflow.
I guess in summary, for ultimate quality, I believe no converter features substitute for handwork in PS if you have the experience and PS toolkit, and either converter is sufficient as a base. However, to get the "best JPEG out of the RAW" without PS, it's clear that C1 is the winner, particularly if you work on the color profiling (I have not done this, but the results have been posted here by others). Also, with BB, to get any kind of efficiency, you'd best be pretty spot on in exposure and WB when shooting. That's my style anyway, so it fits, but were I to just always trust the evaluative metering in the 10D and AWB, BB would leave me far too much PS work, or be too painfully slow to use in fixing things during the conversion. On the other hand, if your exposure and WB are very close, nothing touches the "get JPEG proofs out the door quick" features of BB.
The good thing is that for the prices of C1LE and BB, the purchase price is pretty irrelevant in comparison to the time it takes to dial yourself in on using either/both of them. Even if I do end up switching mostly to C1 in the long run, BB will always remain worth the $45 for it's quick and competent features other than RAW conversion.
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. The work flow is intuitive and the results are very, very nice. All 4 of the conversion programs I've mentioned have versions to d/l free if you'd like to try them out (and Powershovel II is just free to begin with and produces very nice results - I often like the colors better from this program than the others!). All-in-all tho, considering ease of use and results, C1LE for me is the winner. Another plus with C1LE is the fantastic support from Picture Flow and Michael Tapes. They've got a very nice forum.