This one I tried to store w/the scanner's native 1.8G RGB prof, but not sure if it attached it. Either way no conversion.

If you line up the 3 latest scans you can see the pixels line up exactly -- the only difference is the color profile used (and 16v.8 bit)

The profile was detected and used by Photoshop just fine. For filtering purposes, this one with the Epson profile is preferred since it results in a much smoother histogram than the sRGB profile attached to Post #306033. I'd suggest in the future scanning with this profile -> filtering -> convert to sRGB as last step only.

This scan while still a bit dusty, has an order of magnitude less dust and hairs than Post #305115 and proper levels. Unfortunately it still requires quite a bit of manual effort for clean up nicely though, and the bright edges around the scan are rather annoying to repair. None the less, I went ahead and created yet another filtered version as Post #306105, and that will be my last since as I'm totally worn out on this image now.