Having gamma off in settings you risk to mess other parts of rendering pipeline. mrShaders, day light system, caustics, exposure control etc. Everything would be slightly off and a subject of non stop tweaking while with gamma correct workflow things are just right and plain simple out of box. if you get that washed out…
Have never had any problems with gamma in 3d max. It does everything linear with gamma on automatically and not other way around Check if texture open dialogs are NOT set to gamma 1 and rather use picture own gamma or system default ( if input checkbox in gamma/lut tab is set to 2,2) Untill you are saving special textures…