This issue is driving me crazy! Especially because I can't reproduce the results.

If you copy and paste as a smart object from Illustrator into Photoshop, edit, and bring it back into Illustrator, then the pasted/placed smart object is usually greatly scaled down. It is like the two apps share different world space. There is no problem if you scale the placed image up, but you have to determine the appropriate multiplier. 2.5 has worked for me before. Of course, the resolution stays intact, you aren't actually changing the raster image at this point, just its size relative to the vector images.

I think that's how it can be helped.

Does anyone have a better workflow suggestion for adding raster effects to vector shapes and embedding into .ai files?