Quoting lasitter:

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I have a theory that film grain is often present just because that's the best that could have been accomplished at the time.

Here is an article you may enjoy about film grain and its recent demonization:

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Film Grain has been with us now for well over a century and a half, and was never looked upon as "the enemy" until a few "reviewers" and bloggers got it into their heads that it was somehow in the way -- keeping them from seeing the true image.

Grain is an inherent part of the film image.

Remove it at your peril, as layers of real problems may then arise.

Do the DVD buying public and studio executives truly believe that Chapin, Keaton, Ford, Wellman, Welles, Hitchcock, Lean, Mamoulian and others were a bunch of hacks?

Is it possible that Bitzer, Burks, Young and Toland had not a clue, and need some lowly digital tech to clean up their errors?

Have generations of scientists in Rochester had no clue about the horror that they were handing down to us?

I don't think so.

Film Grain has been a known entity and a part of the design of film from the beginning of photography. It has merely gotten smaller and less obvious over the decades.

Everyone involved, from the scientists who created the emulsions, to the production designers who created the sets, the make-up artists who gave the actors their "look," the costume designers who dressed them, the cinematographers and camera operators who exposed the raw stock, the processing labs, effects experts, optical camera workers and finally post-production executives who put it all together...

really did know then, and still know today, what they were and are doing.

We have a film history that goes back 104 years.

Why, all of a sudden, is it left to people who wouldn't know which side of a camera to point toward an actor to totally re-write the history and look of our cinema?

Full Article

As stated in the article, film grain is not the enemy.  I'm convinced that the transition to digital technology has more to do with financial considerations than artistic ones.

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Quoting Grendell:

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What's DNR?

The real enemy.