I record straight into Sonar. I have the "essentials" version so my EQ is limited in the channel strip. There is a basic EQ in there but I never use it.
 
You should be attempting to get a very clean and natural sound from your sources..... microphone, guitar processor, etc.... The goal is to get a natural sound into the track.   Regardless of whether you have channel EQ or not, your aim should be to use as little EQ as possible on the tracks to get the job done.  Some of the tracks, in some of the song projects I write and produce, have ZERO EQ on them. They are raw,  just like they came into the DAW. That's because, in my humble opinion, listening to them on my studio speakers, they don't need any sonic shaping. Midi with good samples tends to fall into this category.
 
The engineer you described, setting at the board twirling knobs and moving faders is doing the job of evening out the sound as he/she hears it.  Again.... the goal is to do as little to the sound at the board as needed to get that natural sound. The engineer is often having to deal with a variety of experience levels and gear quality on the other side of the glass.  As home studio folks, we can often get things set up for consistent results without a bunch of board wizardry.

Recording raw, non-EQ'd tracks may not be your idea way to record. But if you don't have a board with EQ or an external EQ module, you have to record the tracks raw.  So in those cases, popping some EQ into the track as an FX on playback is perfectly fine. It's exactly how I work.  I have set up a number of my Cakewalk EQ's as presets to use for vocal, acoustic guitar, piano brighteners, drum and bass enhancers..... just so I don't have to start from scratch every time. Most EQ's use very little processing power on the modern computers so there's no problem with using them. I also use them on busses rather than always in the individual tracks.

So, all of my tracks go straight into Sonar directly from the mic with no pre processing to that point.  That's not to say you can't do that, or shouldn't do that.... the important thing to know and understand is if you're going to use EQ pre or post..... know why you're using it and what it's doing to the sound.

Play with it. Turn it up, turn it down. Move it all around.
 
You'll figure it out.

1st, mic placement.  You'll find all kinds of "fun" just using this technique.  Hint, it helps to have a room without big problems since the farther and more off-axis the mic is, the more bad room tone can creep in.
 
2nd, external hardware.  I use a channel strip or patchbayed one in lieu of a mixer w/ EQ.  While a less expensive Mackie etc. can work, most pro studios have a significant investment in their boards - or the ones that still have them.   So, I'm sorry, but a $50 per-channel board is not going to give you the same sound as a $50K board or an external $1000 preamp with a $2000 EQ.  The ProChannel EQ in SONAR is a much better EQ than a $20 hardware EQ.  Stick with in the box and learn how you want to use all the incredible power of SONAR effects. 
 
3rd, defining your sound (as much as possible) before it hits your converters is a great method, but is destructive; ie, you can't undo what you've recorded.  A singer just about killed me when her favorite take of a song was ... over-saturated since I was trying out the Warm Audio La2a-style optical compressor.  Too much hair for a jazzy standard, or even R&R.  She was so p ... upset she wouldn't do another take and I had to use a previous one.  That is the danger with working on the front end, but the payoff is nice since that is the fun part of tracking (to me) and makes mixing so much easier.  And this is where it really helps to have experience.  I think it was John Boorman's cinematographer who always asked the camera assistant if they had ever left the lens cap on during a take.  If they answered no, he wouldn't hire them because they were either lying or ruin his shot. 
 
Finally, you should always have a reason to reach for an EQ or comp.  It ain't Everest - you don't use them because they are there.  They help fix problems, and it is fairly to easy to create more problems than you solve.  I don't know how many times I've worked on a track in a mix looking for a sound, switch the effects out and say "that sounds better now."

@AT
When I record using compression, I first record clean, then send out to the compressor and back in to the interface so I get two tracks. The star can monitor the compressed track and we have both in case there is any problem with the compression.

A thought has just occurred to me.

Is it possible that the engineer with the big desk wasn't eqing the feed to the DAW/tape at all, but setting up the foldback/monitor mix? Splitting the recording and foldback lines pre-eq, either using a splitter or hooking the recorder up to lines taken put of the desk's channel inserts, is pretty common practice, or certainly used to be.

As for eqing at the recording stage, personally I might use a high pass filter at that point, but other than that all compression, gating and eqing is for foldback only with the DAW getting the "raw" signal. That way there's nothing that can't be undone.

there is no point in NOT eq'ing for the mix.
that is the end result.
 
when you know how to use eq properly,
you commit going in.
 
you finesse it at mixdown ITB, or OTB

gswitz, that is a good method and safer.  My band's guitarist is always crabbing about too much compression, but we know each other's taste now.

I almost never compress a tube distorted guitar more. I let the guitarist set the sound.

Everything else, it depends. When live mixing I use EQ and compression liberally, but I record without. The RME has EQ and compressor for every input and output. To stack them, I use loopback.

I will say it helps the singer to perform into the compressor so she hears it as she works it.

For that, like I said, I record the direct, send to the compressor, back into the interface for monitoring the compressed signal. You can then also do parallel compression by mixing in the untouched track.

Sometimes I record with several Mics at once for the singer when tracking so we can pick the favorite after the fact.

batsbrew
there is no point in NOT eq'ing for the mix.
that is the end result.
 
when you know how to use eq properly,
you commit going in.
 
you finesse it at mixdown ITB, or OTB

I can see the wisdom of this. Especially from a small commercial studio point of view where time is money, i.e. get em' in, get it down, get em' gone as fast as possible. But my studio is my own and not for hire so time is not money for me. So for me, there is never any advantage to committing to any kind of processing on the way into the recorder.

For me, one of the core ideas behind the concept of having a recording facility is the ability to experiment. If I commit to eq or compression on the way in, I limit my experimentation options later. Why have a studio at home if you're not going to experiment with it?

If you need to eq etc. during recording you can use an Aux or patchpoint track. Place your eq, compressor plugin on the source track and arm the aux or Patchpoint track for record. This is a nice feature in sonar for those who do not have outboard gear and like tailoring on the way in.