Unless they are using the idealized settings. And most of them probably don't know how authentic the setting is vs a real amp - they just turn it till it sounds good.
Exactly this!
See, there are thousands and thousands of helix, Kemper and boss players that are dialing things ti they 'sound good' - have you ever looked at or tried dialing in a pod/helix/toaster? You end up with all kinds of extreme settings and twiddle with advanced parameters for HOURS, to sound good....and NONE of them complain that their mids are on 10 when John Petrucci's is on 7. They tweak till they get the sounds they want, and SWEAR that it's better than an axe fx too!
We all want to dial in tones EASILY. That's why this firmware and all firmwares are so exciting, it gets easier to the real thing, and we twiddle LESS. Why we want a finicky knob to have to dial MORE with a feather touch is beyond me....
The axe is so accurate we now can dial in sounds by eyeballing our favorite artists amps.....but this is a BENEFIT, not the main attraction.....I don't know anyone who switched from pod to axe fx because they could dial in the mids by eye, but it's nice to have. Not NEED to have. Our Rockstars would dial in what sounded right to them THAT NIGHT, and if they needed more MV or presence they would dial it in! It's nice to eyeball these settings and get close, but even then, it's just that, CLOSE-anyone of you who played a tube amp knows the feather micro touch you would need to dial in things night after night. And the sharpie marks above the knobs with your favorite settings. Our heroes did this too. And if it needed tweaking, they would tweak it! They didn't know if they put it at 2.4 or 2.5 - MOST AMPS DON'T HAVE FINE GRADUATIONS
So eyeballing a setting gives you just a ballpark, you don't know if they were barely audible mic'd up at 0.9 or melting ears at 1.1, because you can't see that accurately, and with component drift, tube amp moodiness and venue requirements, these things would change.
We all want easier.
We drive cars instead of horses now
We put on light switches now instead of pitch lanterns
We rather carry an axe fx than lug 3 heavy amps and cabs to a gig
We love when a new firmware comes out so there are minimal tweaks to get a great tone
We even look at amp settings now to ape our heroes' tones, how cool is that?
We want easier, not harder and more finicky and twiddly.
Most people want to plug in AND SOUND GOOD, be it a tube amp, helix or axe fx, and most don't want to learn to dial in 300 finicky tapers. We want progression, not regression.
Cliff even gets us BOTH, why do we insist on making things more difficult when a clearly superior option is given to us?