I once had the pleasure of mixing on an SSL. With so many damn buttons you have to be careful. I was working under the fear that there was a button that ejects the assistant engineer!...
...Actually it was a lot of fun. It was the first time I was in on the mixing of a recording that ended up so clean and high tech sounding. Ahh, the power of high quality compression on every channel. I know compression is a very debated subject on this bbs but I have to say after my SSL experience that GOOD compression used properly is one of the keys to that smooth, clean, radio ready sound.