There's a multitude of emulsions available, even after a lot of them have been discontinued. Each one reacts a little differently to light, both in terms of requiring more or less light, but also in terms of reacting in various unique ways to light.
Gaining stuff / Losing stuff
I'm not incredibly worried about the "death of film". I'm not tied to the use of film to the point where I'll have lost my creative outlet if it disappears, it just happens to be the right tool for the job. I'll buy a fancy expensive high-resolution digital SLR and move on with life. But there are supply problems with film.
IR film update
I'm going to write out a proper entry about my exploration of IR film as part of my series black and white and how I explore it. But I'm in the midst of information to share, so I'm going to share my thoughts and news now and worry about writing out a proper chronology of exploration later.