Continuing my earlier post: The whole notion that large-diaphragm microphones pick up "better" bass or "more" bass because of their size is completely mistaken. When people make generalizations about "better" or "warmer" bass from large-diaphragm microphones, they are usually talking about a cardioid pattern and a dual-diaphragm capsule design. Very few large-diaphragm microphones are single-diaphragm, and the difference in the way the pattern is obtained matters greatly. As you go down in frequency, dual-diaphragm cardioids aren't cardioids any more; their patterns broaden out at low frequencies, often quite considerably. Thus they are picking up additional low-frequency energy from around the room, even from the back of the microphone where a cardioid shouldn't be sensitive.
But that's dual-diaphragm behavior, not large-diaphragm behavior; for better or worse, small-diaphragm microphones with dual-diaphragm capsules have the same characteristic. As an example, I've attached the polar diagram for the cardioid setting of the classic Neumann KM 56 small-diaphragm microphone, which had a dual-diaphragm capsule and three switchable patterns. Compare this to the polar diagram of any good single-diaphragm cardioid and you'll immediately see the difference in low-frequency pickup from off-axis. A good single-diaphragm cardioid can still be a real cardioid at 100 Hz or even 50 Hz.
It's one thing if you're close-miking something or someone in a studio with a cardioid, and quite another thing if you're making a stereo recording with a coincident or closely spaced pair of them. In the studio situation the spreading out of the pattern can be a good thing (warmth, roundness) but in the stereo situation it's a disaster: The low frequencies become more and more mono, which undermines the whole sense of spaciousness in the recording.
So this is one direct answer to the original poster about why most people here are using small-diaphragm condensers, apart from logistical reasons such as lower weight or the visual aspect: It's because we're recording in stereo with two main microphones (or two microphones, period), and in that kind of recording the consistency of the microphones' directional pattern across the frequency range is crucial, and large-diaphragm microphones (especially the most common kinds, which are dual-diaphragm) are never as good in that repect.
--best regards