"To Level up or not too Level Up"

Hi Folks
I just saw something in my current game that reminded me of a discussion we had a couple of years back on maximizing Experience Points. Someone suggested that you shouldn't level up from 1st to 2nd Level ( for example) until you had almost enough experience points for 3rd Level, because, in theory, you would get more experience points per encounter by keeping your characters at a lower level. The attached screenshot is from a RE that my party of 3 PCs, plus Elmo, Meleny, Serena and Rianna had between Nulb and Hommlet. At the time the PCs, Elmo and Meleny were all 7th Level (and except for Meleny have enough Eeps for 8th Level) and the Girls are 4th Level. Note that the girls who are 3 (actually 4) levels lower than the PC's, Elmo and Meleny received just 10 experience points more for a fight with 3 ghouls than everyone else. With that in mind the answer is "Level Up !!"
The Royal Canadian