Thor, Jerry is absolutely spot-on and is, in fact, being overly kind. The guy you talked to is just plain uninformed and ignorant in making such a statement.
Now, perhaps THAT shop doesn't have the equipment or expertise to do justice to scanning your film, so he was speaking only of what his shop could provide, but others do have the knowledge and the gear. Properly done, a good film scan will be of much higher quality than those made from a second-generation source, with an inferior piece of equipment.
Scott - veteran (or victim
) of thousands of filmscans