Nevertheless, the fact that someone in this string said that it's the best thing for Nikon's raw image format (.nef), causes me to pause and think before trashing it. I mean, if it's the best thing for working with .nef, I'll keep it and use it because that is exactly what I'm doing: shooting only in .nef format.
It's the most Nikon thing for Nikon. Nikon format, Nikon algorithms, and Nikon's god awful colour saturation (my opinion). Picking any other raw converter will do exactly the same. The whole point of working with RAW files is they stay original. Lightroom converts to DNG (another RAW standard but an open non-proprietary one) and even gives the option to embed the original nef into it. Other programs work on the nef and store any changes you make in a separate file.
There are some people who really like the way the pictures come off their camera in JPEG (colour sharpness etc wise) and to those people Nikon Capture would suit best because it perfectly mimics the camera settings (one would hope). Additionally changing the camera settings during shooting, something which is often ignored by raw processors will be carried across by Nikon Capture. I have yet to decide if this is a good thing.
All that being said trials are there for a reason and I would suggest you try a few others before settling for one program. Lightroom handle's NEFs just as well as Nikon Capture does, and with more neutral colour rendering IMO, and if you don't like it just edit the camera profile in Lightroom (something easy to do).
If you don't intend to do digital darkroom work why are you shooting in RAW?

That's exactly what it sounds like you intend doing. Taking the negatives (raw files) and tweaking them in software. Which also brings out the following point. If you import 100 raw files off the camera, and you want a minor tweak in one thing only such as white balance, I wonder if it's easier to open the raw file play with the settings, start a batch run with the settings, and doing it to all of them and having no idea what happened till after it's finished. Or if it's easier to import into lightroom, change the white balance, click copy settings, and watch the entire collection updated at the same time in the small preview window. (I admit I haven't used the new Nikon Capture yet but it's single edit approach to editing made it essentially useless)