It's all about experience. I use Neve and Api all day long, with a great room, great converters, great mics, great monitors... if you set me in front of a great chain blindfolded, I could tell you that something is crap. It's a matter of "training"
My comment was to make people try harder. If you sit an average "audio" person in front of a great mix with one 002 pre they would say it sounds great. Massenberg would pick out something as weird, then track it down and fix it. I do this all day, you eventually can tell if something is wrong.
It's okay that nobody could pick out the V72...what AD, mic, comp, eq, etc were you using? Your chain is only as good as the weakest link.