At home I use DC, am rebuilding my layout, and will eventually have fourteen blocks, and I plan to have five throttles. One rail is continuous, and each throttle has a wire hooked up to it, the proverbial common rain. the other rail has gaps, breaking it up into blocks the other wire from each throttle goes to a bank of rotary switches, the output of each rotatry switch goes through an on off switch to an insulated rail of a block. I an currently rebuilding my Rr, so the system set up is documented in my most recent posts over in the logging mining and industrial section
My throttle #1 is an inovator 2000 memory walkaround. it has a hand held throttle on a cable, the cable uses phone base board plugs, when you unplug the throttle, the base remembers the last setting , so your train keeps moving while you walk to the next station to plug back in.
My throttle # 2 is a GML Memory walkaround throttle, similar in function to the Inovator 2000, except it's chord uses a headphone jack to plug in the traveling hand held throttle.
My throttle #3 and #4 are aristocraft radio walkaroud throttles. the base unit is wired to the layout traditionally, and the radio hand held units controll them, and through them a locomotive.
My throttle #5 is another GML throttle..
I have a control panel that has a six position ratary switch for each block, and the output wire froom that rotary switch runs through an on of switch, so I can lill the power to any block easily.
also I use power routing switches, either hand laied or Peko; so I can run any train into a siding, throw the switch to the main, and the power to the siding is turned off, so I can run a different locomotive on that block.
I have been using a set up like that for over fourty years, and it is easy as pie to me; that said the back side of my control pannel looks like a spagetti bowl; and may be intimidating to some one who is not used to it.
I also use DCC at the club, where we have a digitrax system. I am learning DCC, have done some sound decoder installations, and DCC has some advatages; the largest being sound. I have a lot of old brass locomotives, many of them too small to fit a decoder, and almost all of them would need to be remotored; so I am not tempted to go with DCC at home. I have purchased a basic NCE DCC system which I use to program locomotives, and to power a small HON3 portable layout for my single narrow gauge sound locomotive. I much prefer the NCE system over the digitrax, as the documentation is much beter on the NCE system, and I have had much bettter luck programming. My layout thread is in the logging mining and industrial section, my Narrow gauge efforsts have threads in the narrow gauge section.
Both the cost and complexity issues of DC VS DCC will depend on the number of locomotives you have, and the dificulty and expence involved to get decoders in them , and the number of throttles you want to have available . for me good sound is the reason to go with DCC, and that means a Tsunami in every locomotive, that translates to close to $100 per locomotive. In all things, you don't need a lot of locomotives; one really good running locomotives is better than six or ten mediocre runing locomotives. If you have one really good running locomotive with really good sound, you will find yourself running that locomotive most all of the time, and the others will just sit there.
99% of the time, it is just me running my trains. most of the time a second person is there, I'm coaching them how to operate thier train, so there is only one train moving (my main railroad is point to point, no continuous running ) I have the extra throttles for the very rare operating session .
Good luck choosing a system I am commited to a walkaround system, weather DC or DCC At the club I use a MRC controlmster (some big number) to provide DC power for the narrow gauge . it, like the innovator, uses a phone plug; I found that if the MRC unit was acidently plugged into the inovator control loop, it would smoke a $60 handheld controller, so the MRC unit was moved as far as possible from the inovator 2000 control loop.
I will try to follow this thread if you have more information or questions.