Bruce..I understand your questions...and lemme see if I can address them in order.
1. I think people are trying harder to make their stuff sound good...and hence, products like the POD come out, in an effort to be part of the attempt to make things sound better.
2. The projects warrent *working* extra for the sound...and people are spending the $$ so they can do it at home and spend more time to taylor it like they want.
3. The learning curve of recording is steep...especially if you step into not know the difference between mics, why you need phantom power, why you need a mixer, why good speakers are better than stereo speakers...etc, etc. Some people are better suited to learning faster, but as you and I know, the tools available today makes for some super clean sounding demos that sound like pure amatuer trash. ...sometimes hard to look past the production.
My comment was really not so obviously stated...in which I meant to imply that the *creative juices* sometimes are lost during equipment setup. My studio is basically always "on", and it really only takes seconds to get sounds happening. Hence, maybe just a 10 min session of lead takes may occur. Not to say you couldn't have the guitar amped and levels already set from the last session, but items like these stomp boxes makes for quick takes...and imo do really sound great. I would make the comparision between the real McCoy and the POD as the difference between a quality MP3 file and the original .wav. Yes, something you can hear..especially side by side in an A/B comparison...but in a mix...hhhhhmmmm. No doubt, your clean guitar setup you get sounds killer...but I bet that involved plenty of experimentation, until you got what you wanted. As a solo intro instrument, with the mix spot lighting that track, yeah...I'd go for your amp/guitar/mic combo. ...but as a rhythm track *buried* in a mix. And I'm not being lazy...sometimes I think that spinning wheels for that last 1% and spending another 100% of time doesn't always show.
Hence, how does the POD VS real guitar amp debate compare to the Mackie(or Soundcraft)VS a channel strip? Your Mackie preamps, I'm sure serve you well, and even though you'd probably like a Neve, it is not holding you back from making good sounding stuff with the stuff you have by not owning the Neve...does that make sense?? ;-S