I "normalize" masters in Audacity all the time.

I am quite familiar with all the terminology in Craig's article and I own his trusty old "Big Book" for Sonar.

In the past, I really over-used tools like Ozone and I don't know why. Maybe I stopped trusting my ears and felt I had to. But I stopped. (I do trust meters though. Meters never lie.)

Most of the time now, I find that if I am careful with plugins in the mixing stage I get the exact sound I want before exporting.

At that point, all I want to do is get the "peak" where I want it, and I will often "trim whiskers" in Audacity by hand. I know, I know, I could use maximizing software, but I do not want to. It most often throws off the dynamic range I worked so hard to create and it all sounds too "metallic."

That is JUST ME though. I am sure everyone has their own way of doing it.