b0dhi - "All else being equal, a recording system working at a higher sampling rate will always be superior to one working at a lower sampling rate. This is basic sampling theory."
No it's not, where did you get that idea from? The Wiki article you linked to certainly did not make this assertion. I have been dealing professionally with hi-res digital audio since 1992 and although I have seen the odd article which states that sample rates greater than 44.1kFs/s are intrinsically better, those articles have never provided any proof. The more reputable articles state (and prove) the opposite, see AES publications. Sampling theory in fact states that all the frequencies that can be heard by a human being can in theory be encoded perfectly at 44.1k. Sampling (Nyquist) theory also states that to re-create a perfect image of the waveform, two samples per waveform are required, hence why the sample frequency has to be twice the audio frequency. Having more than two samples per waveform is not going to allow for a more perfect re-creation of a waveform, it's just going to allow for the encoding of higher audio frequencies.
The same is true of bit depth, 24bit is not going to give anymore quality than 16bit, it's just going to allow for the encoding of a greater dynamic range, approx 6.02dB for every additional bit, which for the consumer is spurious anyway.
Your argument about the anti-alias filter at 44.1k would have been valid 15 or so years ago but 256x oversampling in modern ADCs make it much easier to implement the filter at 44.1k and while it is not possible to implement a perfect filter, it is possible to get close enough for there to be no decernable artefacts. Of course anti-alias filters have to be implemented whatever the sample frequency but I agree that it is more difficult to create a good filter at 44.1k than at say 96k.
The bottom line is that providing high quality professional ADCs are used, there is no way that a human being could tell the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. The important part here is a high quality ADC, mine cost me nearly $10,000. At that level it's not possible to tell a difference with a finished mix between 44.1k and 96k. There are even more expensive ADCs out there (Prism, et al) and at 44.1k they actually outperform cheaper professional ADCs running at 96k.