[Duardo]

Name them. Name their components.

I suppose what constitutes a "poor design" is a matter of opinion, but a quick search of these pages will quickly turn up plenty of pieces of high-end gear that people consider to be of poor quality. I'm sure that some of the more outspoken members here will be happy to cite examples. But just to be clear, you're saying that any piece of equipment that uses expensive components is, by definition, a well-designed piece of equipment?

If it did a better job nobody would be using analog anymore.
But it doesn't do a better job. It is just cheap to produce and a lot of money can be gone towards convincing people it does a better job which brings us to

What is this "it" you're referring to...are you saying that all analog gear is better than all digital gear? I'd call that a gross overgeneralization...

I'm not referring to a specific piece of equipment, or to "analog" and "digital" in general...I'm saying that if one particular piece of digital equipment does a better job for the task at hand than another particular piece of analog gear, then it is a better value.

By your definition I could say that "digital" is better than "analog" because more people are using it. But that's not correct...just like it's not correct that the fact that some people are still using analog gear makes it, by definition, better than digital gear.

If I piece of gear attracts a lot of customers even though it is cheap to make and expensive to buy that is not value. That is just hype.

Of course it's value. If it generates income then it offers value. It may be hype as well...there's hype surrounding good equipment as well as bad.

You are giving people way too much credit they are not that sophisticated when it comes to buying gear. What they usually end up buying is the gear that reaches their ears above the other gear out there. Thus advertising and careful product placement is what moves the boxes off the shelves. Not components, design and sound quality.

Which "people" are you referring to? It sounds to me like you're doing the same thing you accuse these "people" of, except instead of dismissing the gear they don't see based on advertising and product placement, you're dismissing gear based on prejudice against what, digital equipment in general? Or specifically plugins?

Don't get me wrong. My studio is full of nice pieces of hardware with plenty of expensive components inside them. But there are also plenty of plugins I get a lot of good use out of.