Podcast sample rate

[RS]

Vangelis's mention of podcasts has reminded me of another comment I was 
going to make.  A long time ago someone, it may have been Jim, took me to 
task for referring to a 44.1kHz sample rate.  He said it must have been a 
very old file, because the BBC had standardised on a 48kHz sample rate.

In fact every BBC podcast I have seen, admittedly a tiny sample of the 
population of podcasts, has used a 44.1kHz sample rate.

I read a forum post, probably in something like hydrogenaudio, where someone 
said he resampled everything to 48kHz because the convenience of having 
everything at the same sample rate outweighed a tiny increase in quantising 
noise.  (I worked it out once.  I think for 16 bit linear encoding it is 
about -95dB.)   I can't understand the rationale of going the other way. 
To resample everything that is going to be used as a podcast at 44.1kHz 
seems a huge waste of effort.