My take is that for stealth, or any situation where you can't get to the deck even if you wanted to, not having to worry about overloading is the primary concern. That being said, to my ears the answer on "loudness" is the opposite of the OP's question.
When I make a recording with peaks very ocassionally hitting zero, compared to a recording that I recorded down to peaks in the -6 to -4 range, and boost them in post (not normalized - just amplified), the file sounds louder, but not in a good way. Typically, I find them to be a tad harsh and "cranked up" sounding for lack of a better term.
My theory follows the notion that when more bit depth is used for the master recording, even though true 24bit dynamic range is never supplied by the source, or the analog path in front of the A/D, it just seems to sound better in my experience to roll hot at the show, and not have to do anything else, rather than set levels modestly and have to jack them up later with software. Sure, it's more work at the show, but it's a waste of high resolution PCM not to maximize it's capabilities. Now, I will say that if you are going to leave the rig for a large portion of the night, which I've done plenty when the situation called for it, you do have to roll lower.