Gentlemen, I'm in doubt. I've spent all of my life in being very picky on temperature and time of process and I've applied the Zone System every time I could. However, I recently switched to a diffuser enlarger, with which I noticed that I needed a raise of contrast of at least one full grade higher than usual. I then started to increase my film developing time accordingly, but that made me realize that the higher the contrast, the easier it was to work with the diffuser head. Scratches and spots were less evident, exposure time was easier to handle, Newton rings didn't even have a chance to appear...

But now I reached a point in which I think I'm developing my films almost to completion. The fact that I completely changed my habit of being extremely precise on developement worries me. What am I missing, after all these years of extremely precise work? It seems that, since I (almost) always use multigrade paper, the tonal range of the negative has little or no matter since every drift can be fixed with a little turn of a filter's knob and maybe some dodging.

So, now what? Do I have to assume that all the pain in developement control was worth only in the days in which papers were available in few grades, and even less were on the shop's stands, so one wanted to have a film which would always print fine on grade "2"? Now that one can get from "00" to "5" with a single pack of fresh paper, the pain is not worth anymore? What am I missing? Please, your thoughts!