There are reasons many chose to shoot B&W and for many it's not an after thought. Adams and many of the zone system B&W photographers considered color barbaric because of the lack of control they had with color. The zone system is a way to capture (as Adams put it) what you see in your minds eye. Which is usually never the way the scene looks in reality.
So through a process of first seeing then control the zones through processing times, developers, developer dilutions, temperatures and other controls (all arrived at through a series of tests) you can control and place tones where you want them to be.
With color film, if you start changing temps and dev times, you start getting drastic color shifts which you can't control.
I think that many photographers see in B&W. A great B&W image isn't usually an after thought (I can't get this to work in color so I'll try it in B&W) it is a process that matches someones vision. B&W is not easier than color, just very different. One is not better than the other overall but one can be better than the other to each individual photographer. Just very different approaches to the medium.
If one sees and works in color so be it. The same with B&W. And some work in both. What is key is finding equipment that matches the way you see and work, whatever that might be. Film, digital, color, B&W, 135, medium or large format, find a tool that works for you.
If you prefer 135 format, FF digital rangefinder and a dedicated B&W camera then the choices are not very large. 2 I think. The original MM and the new MM.