Essentially, there is not need to master for -1dBFS or commercial sounds.
Like compression is an OPTION, not a must.
Mastering is usually a process to keep multiple songs on an album on equal level, so you donŽt have to turn the volume after every song on CD.
The topic of the "loudness war" is all bout that and about professional audio engineers donŽt want to cater for the industries `louder is better`premises.
here is a nice dynamic meter TT Dynamic Range Meter
http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/download
to check how much ŽlifeŽis left in your recording.
These days I mostly use just Sonnox Inflator and a successive multi compression stage that is very gentle to the overall dynamic and just takes care of the real bad spikes. You unfortuantely still need some of this if you are going 16bit in the end product. But you still can get away with really intact dynamics.
The more compression you have the less impact certain instruments or passages can make in a song.
The best Limiter is the Volume knob on your stereo, anyway!
best :)