[Leica] Enlargement Sharpness Question

[Leikon35 <Leikon35@aol.com>]

 Since I am now retired and have no more private access to a
 film processing lab,  I can only wonder about the thousands of
 4"x6" machine prints that my wife has made each year from her
 African Camera Safaris ----- most just don't appear sharp to me.
 She uses a  R7 with many Leica lenses as well as Nikon AFs
 but that is not the issue.

 Various labs over the years have been used, but I have been told just
 recently,  that to speed up the printing of automatic machine prints,
 the lenses are usually used wide open ---- as opposed to stopping
 down for custom enlargements.  Am I expecting too much  wanting
 needle sharp machine prints or should we keep trying different labs?  

 Marvin