There are a lot of good answers in the thread. Here's my 0.02$. (background: I did photo-chemical machining [fancy term for precision etching] for 12 years and lived with a set of calipers or micrometer in my hand all day every work day).
As others have said, it all depends on the accuracy needed and how much use the tool will get. For stone cold simplicity you can't beat vernier. But they are slow to read if the lighting is bad or your eyes aren't good. Keep in mind that the numbers that you are seeing with a digital caliper might show a measurement into the 0.0000 range but that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. No caliper can reliably measure in the ten thousandths range. And like everything else in life, you generally get only what you pay for.
My personal preference is a dial caliper. Easy to read and no batteries. If you are using the tool a lot having a thumb-wheel makes a huge difference in how easy the tool is to use. If you are using the calipers a lot then the "feel" of the slide makes or breaks the use of the tool and repeatability of measurements and the thumb-wheel helps a lot with that.
Starrett makes top quality tools. The thing that I didn't like about their calipers was the blunt, rounded tips. They are strong but limit the use of the tool when you have to measure in a small space, which was a requirement with the work that I was doing.
I used a lot of Brown & Sharp calipers, very good quality and a very smooth feel. Very nice to use all day long.
My personal preference is a Mitutoyo dial caliper. Very repeatable, very smooth slide, a thumb-wheel and they can be bought with carbide faces which helps with the life span of the tool if they are getting heavy use. I have a Mitutoyo in both metric and inch (the inch caliper has carbide faces).
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OP doesn't mention micrometers but here are my thoughts concerning them. I much prefer a vernier micrometer over a digital one. The reason being that if you are using the tool all day long and doing hundreds of measurements per day you learn to hold the tool one-handed with your pinky finger through the jaw curve and measure by turning the barrel with index finger and thumb. The digital micrometers available that we tried out back when I was doing that work (1985-'97) were just huge, bulky and heavy, making one-handed use all day long a serious pain. Once one gets used to vernier they are simple to use and stone cold reliable.
Cheers,
James