There’s a lot of unpacking that, so be patient with me. 
SMARTBULBS NEED CONSTANT POWER
Smart bulbs almost all require that the current be on at all times. The bulb Dims itself, but it needs current so that its radio can hear the next “on” command. This is true whether the bulb is zigbee, Z wave, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.
Consequently, you wouldn’t use most of the switches we’ve been talking about with smart bulbs. Instead, you have to use a switch specifically intended for use with smart bulbs.
The good news is that the Zooz and Inovelli Z wave switches Have both abilities: the ability to be set up for a smart bulb so they are not actually cutting power to the Bulb and the ability to do direct Z wave association. You Need to check each specific model to be sure, but those are a good choice.
DIRECT ASSOCIATION FROM SWITCH TO BULB?
If you get a Z wave Bulb, it is possible in most cases to set up a direct association from the switch to the Bulb. But you probably won’t want to do that, because as soon as you do, you lose the ability to put restrictions around the switch/bulb rule. Essentially with direct association every single time you turn on the switch, the bulb would also come on. That’s fine for the auxiliary and the master in a three-way switch set up, but it might not be what you want for the Bulb.
For example, you might want to Bulb to come on at 50% if the baby is asleep. Or not have the bulb come on at all in the overhead fixture, but just have a table lamp come on. Just lots of different possibilities.
Of course if you’re OK with the bulb coming on every time, no problem. Then you can use direct association with a zwave bulb if you want to.
WHY ARE THERE MORE ZIGBEE BULBS AVAILABLE THAN ZWAVE?
This one’s easy. Zwave protocol limits a hub to a maximum of 232 devices total. And some people find a start having network efficiency issues once they go over about 175.
The zigbee profiles used for lighting (ZLL, ZHA, and Zigbee 3.0) have a limit in the thousands. It’s just a different addressing schema. So a company like Phillips or Sylvania that wants to be able to sell lighting solutions to office buildings and Hotels and airports prefers Zigbee. That expertise carried over into their residential lighting divisions and we got Zigbee as a common smart light standard.
Also, zigbee radios are smaller and more energy efficient than zwave radios, although the ratio has improved with the latest generation of Z wave. ( this is also why you see smaller battery powered Zigbee sensors with longer battery life than their Z wave counterparts).
The original Z wave light bulbs were visibly much bigger than Zigbee bulbs although they have the same base. But the newer models are pretty much the same size.
Additionally, zigbee uses the same radio frequency worldwide while zwave varies by region, so it’s easier to plan factory runs with Zigbee. The same bulbs that sell in China can be sold in the US and in Argentina as long as they can handle the power requirements.
Anyway, although there are more Zigbee models available, if you want zwave, they exist.
ZIGBEE BULBS AND ZWAVE SWITCHES
(Or mixing a zigbee accessory switch with a Z wave master switch.)
You can do this as long as you have a hub that can act as a “man in the middle.” So the switch sends a message to the hub (again, not cutting the power to the bulb directly) and then the hub sends a message to the Bulb. Works fine, lots of people do this.
The topic title for the community FAQ mentions hue but it applies to any brand of smart bulb.
The downside of these is that if the smartthings hub is not working, the switch will not control the bulbs.
THE ZIGBEE EQUIVALENT TO ZWAVE DIRECT ASSOCIATION
Yes, There is a zigbee equivalent for direct association between a zigbee switch and and a zigbee bulb but it only works with devices that are specifically made for that purpose, most of which are battery-operated Handheld remote. Some examples are the Hue dimmer, the IKEA puck, and the Lutron Aurora Dimmer.
These work fine, and they have the advantage that they will work even if your hub is unavailable, but the problem is getting it all to work in the context of a smartthings set up.
Again, the first rule of home automation applies: the model number matters.” There are some ways to get some of these devices working Without going through the hub to some extent, but that’s a whole other conversation.
However, what you can typically do is either have it work using the hub as a “man in the middle,“ or you may be able to use it as a parallel means of control. Again, lots more to discuss if we get into that. The short answer is that zwave direct association is a lot easier to use in a smart things context.
SENSORS
You said “switch/bulb/sensor array.” When did sensors come into the use case and how exactly are you intending to use them? It would be very rare to use direct association for sensors in a SmartThings set up because of that lack of filtering I discussed above. Lots of community members use Zigbee sensors and zwave light switches, for example.
Whew! That was probably more than you wanted to learn, because only parts will be relevant depending on the direction you choose. But I thought it might be easier to choose a direction if you did know at least a little bit about all of that.