Thanks for chiming in, yeah, if you don't care about the nuances in the "feel", there is no issue here, e.g. Axe III records beautifully.My thoughts:
1) tube amp + guitar speaker Vs Axe + FRFR monitor is not a rigorous test, for so many reasons, some of them already explained by others
2) I tend to value the quality of the sounds as i would do in a recording session, where the cab is in another room and I’m hearing the mic’ed sound. I don’t really care of other factors, including the “feel” of the speaker moving air. That’s mostly impractical in real life (and on most modern stages)
3) latency is very annoying, but I’ve never experienced it with Axe 3, with my setup. On a stage, just standing a few feet away from the amp would introduce a more pronounced delay.
I did another session yesterday, turned the volume up a bit more to compare both setup, that improves the feel of the Axe III. Interesting.