I will disagree with you just
slightly, but agree with the rest. You can indeed do a high pass/low pass on the cab in your Axe-FX. it's simple. And it works. Try it!!!
I've talked about that since forever it seems to me. Talk to real FOH engineers and not the guys in the clubs. The National level guys. Seek interviews of them if you can't find any to dial up on the phone.
In the January 2010 issue of "Premier Guitar" they interviewed 5 FOH guys. Doug Nightwine (does sound right now for Shinedown) gave me the tip I use in the Axe-FX for a PEQ block after the cab (check any of my presets post 9.00). They high pass Shinedown at 160Hz and low pass around 5kHz. If you look at my presets, I used that as a starting place (along with the advice from Radley) to find what worked for ME and I ended up at band 1 blocking at 120Hz with a .707Q and band 5 blocking at 7106kHz with a .707Q. My signal chain is similar to amp-cab-PEQ with everything else wrapped around that, based on my own preferences.
The key is to use the PEQ to essentially 'dial' in the sonic timbre of your amp/cab combination. You don't lose anything that they won't wipe away at FOH or on the mixing desk in a mixdown. That's the key.
What guitarists hear on stage, the so-called 'raw' guitar or 'in-the-room' tone, isn't what gets through the mix anywhere but in the direct vicinity of the little sonic 'cone' that guitarists are conditioned to like.
What I do is if I am jamming alone, just bypass the PEQ. Massive bass, soaring highs. Playing live or recording? PEQ on = everything simply 'dialed in' ready to cut any mix and not shred ears even when beamed straight at your ears.
To me, that's been the absolute key of FRFR for, well, years. It's how it's done. It works. Pros know it, pros do it.
Try it. You might like it.