Digital BW, The Print

I'm an old zone system guy that has used the "proper proof" to dial
in my negative ISO and 
development times to work well on my printing paper. Now the old wet
lab is gone and 
replaced with a scanner, computer, and printer. When I scan one of my
negatives on my 
Epson 3200 - the histgram shows data (tones?) from about 80 - 240.
I'm assuming the 
more of the input histgram I use, the fewer the gaps when I set my
black and white points 
to output to 0 - 255. I hope thats right thinking.

If it is, I would assume from the histgram that my ISO is a bit too
high and development a 
bit too short

Would it make sense to calibrate ISO and development times to use
more of the scanner 
histogram? If so - is there a better way than shooting test frames
and scanning them?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

Phil C.