Back when professional fashion or people photographers had to shoot chromes, it was common practice to use a meter, experience, and Polaroid tests to arrive at a likely "good" exposure. Then you would shoot the actual "shot" at that exposure, or sometimes 1/3 stop less. You would hold the final "good" film back and run a test at the local E-6 lab - called a "clip test" (because they would often clip the end of a 35mm or 120 roll - you would tell them to clip frame one or the end of the roll - but individual sheets work the same way). After seeing the results of "normal" processing, another test could be run with the film pushed or pulled at 1/10 stop intervals - or if you were happy with the results, you could tell them to run the bulk of the film as normal.
E-6 film is often advertised as being "pushable" and many photographers think that pushing E-6 half a stop looks better in general. Pulling doesn't work as well, which is why you err towards underexposure when shooting. Also, especially back in the day when everything was scanned on big drum scanners, you could give printers really dense, underexposed chromes and they would reporoduce better than chromes with delicate, nearly blown highlights. Now that we scan with Imacons and Epsons, you need a better overall exposure IMHO.
Readyloads are very easy to work with - using holders or 120 film, I used to generate dozens of boxes of different clip tests - very confusing in the midst of a big shoot.
For general shooting or if you have to use a remote lab via long distance, this is a PITA. Every RIT student learns to <bracket> and I bet even dummies like Brooks-educated Meunch has figured out how to shoot one high and one low ;-)
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