I have a viewpoint to offer.
When I first heard of the Axe, I was currently using one of the Digitech GNX's. So, understand that when I heard the audio demo page on Fractal's site, it blew my mind to think that those sounds were "digital". That got my interest. But what REALLY got my interest was when I heard all the amazing clips from USERS who made their own patches. Shredi's Mark IV clips were what finally sold me on the unit.
Ergo, when I got my Ultra, I liked a good bit of the presets, but didn't like some, but it didn't worry me because I already heard the capabilities produced by users of the unit. So I found the stock presets that were "unusable" for MY tastes to be no limitation or confusion because I knew what I wanted could be done. And I was not even CLOSE to being able to tweak sounds when I got this unit.
Now? I think any type of guitar tone (and MORE
) can be realized with the Axe-Fx. The bajillions of user patches have more than shown that. Plenty of these guys like Shredi, Mojave, and Clawfinger make killer high gain tones; javajunkie, rocketmorton, and matman make nutso effects tones; and then you got guys like Scott Peterson, Dweezil, and Pete Thorn making great clean tones and dry amp tones...I mean, gosh, the out-of-the-box presets shouldn't worry anyone!
All you have to do is think a little bit past that point, and then there is no problem.