The biggest truth I realized, as someone put it greatly in "Why digital mixes don't sound as analog..." mega-tread, is analog gain is what you pay for - it's limited, has character and costs you the money, while on the digital side that rule doesn't apply - unlimited gain with zero character and almost costless
Big issue is also how analog gear is designed - almost all settings work(think of UBK's Fatso - it can be a lot of compression, but it's never a bad compression), while in digital you have like 100000 settings and few work. Also, that analog gear character became the part of the music itself over time...digital still has a lot of miles to travel to overtake that
What could help in analog modeled plugs is to take that kind of approach instead of making it being able to do the laundry, massage your back and making you a cup of coffee while it mixes your tracks...DSP guys - please make it sound good on all settings, how hard can that be?
