There are a whole bunch of old hidden gems no one talks about in the FX list. They may not be as good or as fancy as the newer stuff but they have their own unique charm and uses. I played with the old Cakewalk Amp Sim a while ago and it certainly doesn't hold a candle to my other sims I was able to get it to produce some pretty decent results. I could see it being useful for doing oddball stuff like just trying to get a speaker sound for track or adding some drive... whatever. The emulations aren't that bad.
 
There is also a Phase tool thingie (not a phaser) that you can use to check for/correct phasing problems. The Producer FX video shows all that stuff and makes the program way more useful. I honestly cannot think of any effects I need now that I know what all is included, what it does and how to use it. All the money I may have spent on shiny crap I didn't really need can now go to more important things like mastering tools, video programs, outboard gear or... food and shelter. lulz

Some of those old effects are still perfectly usable. I quite like the old phaser, it does a "Small Stone OTA circuit with wobbly LFO" sound better than the more modern "better" Small Stone emulations achieve.

Karyn
I think it's hilarious what we spend 40+ years on more and more expensive gear trying to make things as clean and "HiFi" as possible, then as soon as we go digital and achieve "perfection" we spend more and more on expensive gear trying to make it sound like crap again

Karyn - I know you're kind of kidding, but actually you hit on a very important truth: It's not about the audio. No matter that we now have the possibility of near-perfect crystalline audio, flat from 20 to 20, with no distortion or crosstalk. No matter what the very knowledgeable and helpful audio geeks here and elsewhere believe. When you make music, the most important element is music. The song, the harmony, the arrangement, the performance, the feeling. I'll bet most of us can think of a favorite record that is recorded so poorly that it would not pass muster in our home studios of today, but was loved by millions when it was first played on the radio and still touches your heart today. If it takes a little retro tape simulation to get that feeling, I'm good with it.

I think the point is that perfection is not necessarily pleasing to the senses, and this is an almost universal thing. Look at visual art. Geometrically perfect lines, shapes and textures don't generally result in beautiful artwork - people appreciate the imperfections that give a piece its soul. A great pencil artist uses the limitations of the paper to wonderful effect, and things like construction marks and restated lines are often left in the piece because they impart character, energy and movement. You could go into Adobe Illustrator and, using a stylus touchpad instead of a pencil and paper, draw the same piece perfectly, taking advantage of Illustrator's line smoothing and editing features to mask imperfection and remove mistakes. But the end result is, in general, nowhere near as pleasing to the eye. 
 
It's exactly the same with recorded music. Bit-perfect digital clarity is not necessarily the most pleasing or musical sound to the ear. It's nice that the ability to achieve such sonic perfection is there, but as humans our appreciation of sound rarely depends on such perfection. 

Karyn
I think it's hilarious what we spend 40+ years on more and more expensive gear trying to make things as clean and "HiFi" as possible, then as soon as we go digital and achieve "perfection" we spend more and more on expensive gear trying to make it sound like crap again

Kind of like we make a studio environment sound as flat as possible by taking the room sound out of the recording only to add it back in as reverb.

I think it's all about taking undesirable imperfections and replacing them with desirable imperfections. 

As I said in an upcoming Pro Sound News column...we make music, not audio. The sound of distortion is the sound of something straining, and pushing against limits. Adding the effect of tape distortion to acoustic guitar gives it a whole other attitude.

Karyn
I think it's hilarious what we spend 40+ years on more and more expensive gear trying to make things as clean and "HiFi" as possible, then as soon as we go digital and achieve "perfection" we spend more and more on expensive gear trying to make it sound like crap again

Its kind of like recording at 192K/24 bit, then using a bit crusher to drop it down to 8 bit, to get that "commodore SID sound".
 
I suppose I also want an effect that will take my perfectly recorded digital tracks and have a 1940's feature that makes them all sound like they were were recorded using one mic over the whole room. And a 1950's feature that shows the audible effect of layering up tracks on top of each other on a three track or four track recorder.
 
And forget about stereo! Like Cub Koda said. "Give me mono or give me death"
 
 
 
 

Cakewalk FX2 Tape Sim... Subtle, it is not!
 
I just feel obligated remind everyone that ToneBoosters ReelBus is a thing that exists and is cheap. There's no need to use these grungy, alias'y plugs like Ferrox etc. unless you actually want that electronic birthday greeting card type of sound.
 
The Pro Channel tape sim is neat and useful, but always fairly subtle.
 

SvenArne
Cakewalk FX2 Tape Sim... Subtle, it is not!
 
I just feel obligated remind everyone that ToneBoosters ReelBus is a thing that exists and is cheap. There's no need to use these grungy, alias'y plugs like Ferrox etc. unless you actually want that electronic birthday greeting card type of sound.
 
The Pro Channel tape sim is neat and useful, but always fairly subtle.
 

That's almost what I was going to say...  I like the Console Emulator because it is subtle, and imparts its magic by compounding the results.   FX Tape Sim, OTOH, I like for cases where I want to distinctly hear the effect.    As always, options are a wonderful thing...