Unless your scene was a very low contrast one and you want that for LF sheets only, D-76 stock with continuous agitation for 1600 is far from optimal, as you know.
Kodak's (800) recommendation is aimed at a system (exposure + development) in which it's preferable to avoid any longer development time, so you can yet print your sunny scenes with decent highlights, and keep grain and image structure as they were designed to work the best possible way.
So at 1600 your soft light scenes will have normal tone with some shadow loss that's not too relevant because there are no real shadows in a soft scene, but your sunny scenes, because of the high contrast 1600 development, will ask you to cut exposure a lot, so highlights don't get blocked, and that means you'll get very dark shadows, a la slide film on a sunny day: again, if nothing matters in the shadows, then it can work for some scenes, but in general, that poor shadow detail is not very appealing.
At 1600, a speed increasing developer like Microphen will do wonders for you:
It will care about your highlights (D-76 won't), it will give you better shadow detail, and although it makes grain grow a bit more than the standard D-76 development at 400, it won't grow as much as with a D-76 stock development for 1600 with constant agitation.
Happy weekend !