How many great things did you hit?
Several, for sure.
But there's an elephant in the room, certainly.
Remember when the ADAT came out? First thing they (the reviewers) did was compare it Pro Tools. Sure enough, a bit-level identical copy. So suck it, PT boys, this is just as good (this was in Mix Magazine years ago.)
So whatever the DAW, it's a wash at nearly the bit level, all else being equal.
There is no "this DAW sounds..." without someone tasting some distortion they like.
Which always brings out the cork-sniffers.
If you notice, preamps were once judged on cleanliness and transparency and subjective terms no solid-state could abide, but only valves. Once hooked to very expensive analysis equipment, the King was found naked - and pretty drunk -- and allah duh sudden, preamps have gone back to touting warm, open, full-bodied, and wine-tasting terms.
Technically speaking, these are all distortions of some sort, like it or not. It's now just as a matter of choosing the distortion one prefers. Big Muff? DS-1? And just like there's no guitarist that actually plays a straight, unaltered signal, there's an increasing number of recordists -- that should know better, IMO -- that also tailor the sound as they go.
If it's truly about clean and pure, this has been achieved for many years and is available quite affordably these days at fidelity that passes technical muster. Yes, it takes all the fun and games out, but the waveforms, numbers, and summations do not lie. It's all there.
Choosing a preamp is a show. It's a dance. It's about choosing the 'sound' - an added effect - over an exact copy of the original. If it's a matter of warm or lustrous, this is a matter of what artifacts and distortions, complex as they may be, the recordist selects.
And hey, i got no problem with that. But I ain't buying a bridge, either. Done bought too many, already.