What are your thoughts?

I'm generally with you. I will occasionally leave the chrome on other parts only if seams or sprue attachment points will be unseen. Anything that needs cleanup generally looks much better dechromed and painted.

Same here.

As much as I'd like to have bright, shiny chrome already on the parts, seams in chromed assemblies ceased being acceptable sometime after childhood.

Depends on what the car I am modeling has for various areas.

What I dislike about plated parts is that you can't really sand mold lines/fill seems.  To me, that won't do.

-Blake

I've never stripped the chrome off. I've painted it without any ill effects, and with my NASCAR kits, I'll spray it with dullcote to get a matte aluminum sheen to it.

I and a number of modeling friends have primed, painted bad chromed parts and then alclad them with alclad chrome.  During the priming and painting you can correct flaws.  Some folks remove chrome before priming, others of us just prime right over the chrome (actually aluminum).

The very first thing I do with any car build is to find the chrome sprue and sink it in a bleach bath to strip all the chrome off. Every piece. Then I use ALCLAD to re-coat it.

"Model chrome" is far too shiny for scale realism. And really, you can't hide the detachment points. The only way to get a uniform finish is to paint it all. ALCLAD is not as shiny, but shiny enough in a proper "scale" way. Inevitably, you will notice the difference in shine between a painted and a plated part.

If a part is supposed to be a bare aluminum casting, spraying the chrome part with Dullcoat will make it look like an aluminum casting.  Aluminum castings are common in engine compartments, and cast aluminum wheels are common.

I leave as little chrome on a kit as possible