Hi
A bridge will forward any packet that hits it, <...>
Nope, by definition a bridge will only forward packets to the subnet where the destination is listening. A repeater would forward any traffic.
Right, but AFAIK a bridge knows nothing about (IP-) subnets but only about (Ethernet) Segments which might be coincident. A bridge only looks at Ethernet headers, only a router looks at IP headers.
True, but a bridge or (layer 2) switch still performs routing. On level 2, yes, but that's still routing. The algorithms are typically different between layer 2 (spanning tree) and layer 3 (distance vector, OSPF, etc.), but routing can be and is performed on both layers.
But these days most "real" devices are mixtures of both.
Really? My impression is that 'layer 3 switches' are still pretty new. They're being pushed, yes, but I presume that they're still quite a bit more expensive than pure layer 2 managed switches (with VLAN abilities, perhaps), which in turn cost more than unmanaged switches and those more than hubs (multi-port repeaters). Cheers Tobias