I read that Goldsmith article and my big take away was; if you're a top session guy then surely you're prepared to spend a bit of time with the AXFX, whichever model it was, and see what it's capable of. And if you are using it for sessions then prep up a few basic tones from different genres you can call upon quickly. They're always going on about being prepared so that seems obvious to me
If he's gone through the Michael Britt profiles then why didn't he do some research and try AustinBuddys, or Burgs or Leons.
He's supposed to be a pro guy and the thought occurred to me that, as a session guy a piece of gear comes along that has the facility to cover most if not all of the sounds I'll need as an electric guitarist in a simple easy to transport package then I want to put some time into it to see if it'll work for my application
Now he might have done that and not been happy with the results, but it appeared to me that it fell into the too difficult box to spend some time learning about whatever AXFX he was using so he copied his mate and went back to a Kemper. He might be one of those guys who isn't that into getting to grips with gear
When I saw the comment about the AXFX being only for rock/metal I did LOL and wondered if i should carry on reading.
Thing is, just because he's a working player doesn't mean he knows what great tones are. He'll be getting hired because he plays the part the person who's hired him wanted, turned up on time and didn't cause any issues. How good we as guitar players of taste might consider his tones I would imagine isn't a consideration for the people who employ him. It'd be interesting to hear him play to see what his tones are actually like