The images are so small I can't tell what, if anything, the images, would lose if they were sharper. The only thing that come to mind is that they might lose is the look of the era in which they were taken - that sort of smooth, low contrast, slightly mushy look.
The look of the era is indeed worthy of preservation. That said, the same era offered perfectly sharp and detailed images too.
I think the point is that one style gives a human touch in the sense of emotional connection, whereas a lot of detail turns the exercise into a little bit of human archaeology, if you see what I mean, where rather than get a sense of person we get a sense of skin condition. It is carried across into my feelings about contemporary PR photography of celebs, where there is no contact with person only with "project promotion", as it were, though in the case of the latter, through too much retouching where the person morphs into plastic doll. Those old shots from Avedon and Stern of Marilyn are so powerful
and memorable precisely because they showed her as vulnerable; they were pretty grainy and mushy, too, and both those photographers were perfectly capable of doing high gloss where required; who remembers shots of any current plastic fantastic?
I have no pet dog in this fight because I no longer make pix of women, and what I do shoot I also usually wind up trying to defuse from painfully sharp. I can only speak of what appeals to me, which is why I guess I'm such a fan of Moon and Turbeville; just to prove the mind isn't closed, I also enjoy both Feurer and Lindbergh, who can do it both ways too.
:-)