Actually until very recently, color negative film was used only by amateurs and those pros who did retail work (portraits and weddings), essentially those who wanted prints as results. Everything for publication, at least all color, was shot as chromes. You ain't seen nuthin' til you've seen the quality of a 4x5 or 8x10 chrome! Essentialy everything shot for publication was shot with chromes, whether fashion or product work. In fact many if not most publications still prefer chromes. Many of us formed the habit of shooting chromes and continue to do say today.
At one point, Kodachrome was the industry standard, but improvements, during the past 10 or so years, in other chromes along with the a reduction in the locations processing Kodachrome have made Kodachrome sort of an orphan child. In fact many publicatons specified kodachrome for submissions.
I don't know why you are having problems with prints from you scans of chromes, the results should be excellent. I don't know what the "loss" in in your prints, but I would suspect something in your scanning technique. I have found I need to reduce saturation by about 25% when scanning chromes. Printed on Epson Heavyweight Matte Paper or Premiun High Contrast paper, the results are near identical to conventional prints, at normal viewing distances (arms length for an 8x10).
The attached is from an Ectachrome.
Distinctive Images
