Not all thats true Dave - though your point that the level was too low in the first place is obviously valid.

I quite often record at a lower level than before (in yea old analogue times) as with 24bit recording there is so much headroom that you can make use of the increased dynamic range.

I (along with many others recording acoustic music) never normalise or in fact compress anything. I do however automate the level down for the hot spots - a sort of manual compression I suppose.