Glad you're enjoying the work, and it sounds like you're on a good path with your own project. Some of deciding how to present a material comes simply from spending time with the material; really learning what can be done with it "naturally," versus what you can force it to do with modern technology. We have the capability to grade every part of every frame separately now, and craft any image we want, but this almost never yields a cohesive, accurate representation of a source, so you're probably in the right aesthetic when you embrace the most stubborn flaws. Plus, human perception is a curious beast :) Best of luck!
_Mike