I'm pretty lazy and not nearly as intelligent as the amp mic'ers because I simply "cannot quite cut it". But what I REALLY enjoy is NOT having to pick my 80 lb AC30 amp up every time I need a guitar track, sticking it in my closet, throwing a blanket over it, pulling mic's out of my gig bag, pulling cables out of my gig bag, hooking it all up to my interface, getting the sound out of my amp, translating that sound through the mic into my interface per moving around mic(s), monitoring that sound against some pre-recorded tracks that need to mix well beginning from the source onward, moving mic's around again, rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat, etc. And doing this every time I have started writing and recording a new song. .
Wow...you really make recording a guitar amp seem as difficult as building a pyramid.
I dunno...maybe I've been doing it all wrong...I rarely have to pickup my amps...I never have to stick them in a closet...I don't throw blankets over them, unless I have some desire to get a real dry/dead sound....and AFA the process to hook up cables and connect to interfaces, well, if you actually do enough home recording, those things are pretty much already "wired"...I mean, it's really just a quick connect thing. They are there, ready to go at arm's length.
Now when it comes to the part about getting that sound, and monitoring and making it all blend with other tracks...well, that's what recording is about, isn't it?
If you do it enough times, most of that becomes a muscle memory process...and the more songs you write and record, the less of a tedious process it is.
TBH...there ARE people who truly enjoy the recording process...the setting up for a session, because each session is (well, at least IMO, it should be) unique, and not just about punching up some presets and not having to put any effort into it....though again, the more you record, the effort you put into it is not really a "difficulty", it's simply the thing you do, no different than the effort require to learn a guitar part and execute it correctly...etc...etc.
The process is the journey...which often can be more interesting than the destination...but everyone is in a hurry to churn out a half-baked mix, and then start another one. It's like people at home are on some clock...and they consider the 5 minutes to set up a mic a waste of time.
So it sounds to me like you could have stopped your mini-rant after you said - "I'm pretty lazy..."
Oh, and another thing.
Maybe I'm in the very small minority...but I find it hard to believe that the majority of people who record at "home" (whatever that means for each person), all have to do it at mosquito-fart levels, and the "crazy" notion of being able to turn a 50W amp up past 2, is only reserved for people where "home" is some kind of underground bunker, isolated from humanity.
I'll give the apartment dwellers a pass here...I get it...thin walls and all that, but honestly, the people who live in houses should have plenty of opportunity to turn up past 2 to get some decent tones and move some air with that speaker, without your family or the neighborhood going into meltdown mode.
If you close the door to most typical rooms of any house, you can contain the sound pretty damn well enough of moderate and even higher wattages amps.
Oh sure, they may hear you upstairs or in the next room...but honestly, are most family members so not understanding or cooperative, so that they allow you to have at least some time of the day where you can do your thing and let rip a little bit...?
Heck...what do kids who learn how to play drums or things like loud brass instruments, etc, end up doing? They're not stuffing themselves into closets with blankets over them just so they can play their instruments, which can be pretty darn loud, sometimes as loud as a guitar amp.
No...I think the thing with many home rec guys who seem to always have some reason why recording anything OTB and miking up instrument is so "difficult" to do, IS more about laziness than anything else.
People these days are convenience whores (I've caught myself being one at times), and they just want to sit in a chair and play with their mouse and the GUIs...so you have to work at not being one. Experience live recording...don't just turn it into a software adventure.
OK...I guess...that's my rant.