Experimentation is great! I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. My only suggestion was to try to get more levels than he has. It's also reasonable to try to leave a little room so you don't accidently run over, and also to allow you to easily add a few db of EQ if needed.
But it's just a suggestion, if someone wants to try to nail 0db perfectly, then by all means, go for it. In my experience, -6db is a nice middle ground. It works well, it allows for the occaisonal louder-than expected note, I've had it requested by mastering engineers, etc. But in recording, there are no rules. I was sharing what has worked well for me, but your mileage may vary,and by all means, try *everything* if you have the time. You'll learn what works for you instead of for someone else. However, I'm not sure where all this noise you're worrying about will come from - there's no noise in the digital storage medium, and the digital processing to raise the level won't add any noise - it's just doing some math. Even with the example low-level recording, I suspect the noise is coming from the way it was processed. I can raise that signal without adding any noise. I'd just rather not have to.
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