There are even more practical reasons for shooting whole-plate: firstly, Louis Daguerre determined that 6 1/2" x 8 1/2" was the largest size which he could hole in one hand and he made that the "whole" plate and everything else was a fraction thereof. Petzval lenses, which were pretty much all one could use for portraiture during the Daguerreian era, are very large and heavy, so every step-up in format size meant a big jump in size/weight/expense for the lens. Then add the weight and bulk of the plates and the necessary equipment to process them, the expense of the silver plates and gold-toner, etc.
For wetplaters, too, those are also two big reasons to stick with the 4/4 format. The benefit of being able to manipulate the plate in one hand comfortably during processing cannot be over-stated. I also believe that there is a certain intimacy to viewing an image which is small enough to be held in one's hand that gets lost as soon as that threshold is crossed (as with an 8x10) and one has to stand back and view it from a distance to take it all in. That's debatable, but just something I have felt.
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