Adobe RGB is wide gamut (lots of colors) which is a good thing, but you pay for that with a bigger file.
sRGB is a bit smaller, but the advantage is much smaller file sizes, and sRGB might be considered the "standard". It's used for the web because the web is limited gamut, thus no sense having a wide gamut that the web can't display.
So, for "tweaking" and maximum image infor, clearly a big file with a big gamut gives you the best option.
Printing an image requires you to think in a similiar vein to putting something on the web.
If you have a 16 bit file, but you print it on an HP Laserjet 5, you are going to get a high quality black and white image, but no where close to a real photo or an inkjet. An HP just can't print millions of colors, it can't print color at all.
Just because you switch to a "color" printer, doesn't mean you can now print every color the file can support or possibly display on a monitor.
So the question becomes, how are you trying to print the photo, and what is the highest gamut supported by the printer you are sending the photo to?
It doesn't matter if you can display or categorize 5000 shades of red, if your printer can only print 256 shades of red.
Most photo printers cannot print the full gamut of srgb, so there is no sense sending a photo to a printer in regular Adobe RGB format.
That's why most Fugi Frontiers request you bring in an sRGB file......
So yes, sRGB is a smaller gamut than 1998, but if you can't print the full gamut of the "s" version....it really doesn't matter.
Mark
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