As I see it, raw histograms could be the best representation of the scene dinamic range, before any alteration to the contrast (in post-processing).
The problem is knowing whether such a scene can be reproduced in print, which is the reference output in photography. So a raw histogram should show the dynamic range of a scene in terms of EV’s (-8…+8?).
Once you know the dynamic range of your printer/paper/viewing condition, then you can tell how much tones (and which ones) you should compress from the raw to print, hopefully without loosing that beautiful natural contrast in the subject of your photo.
Are we saying the same thing?
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