This thread can be neatly boiled down to three points.
1. Use whatever gets you the results you're looking for.
2. The results you're looking for might not be the same as the results I'm looking for.
3. Mediocre tools paired with excellent talent/skills will always outgun excellent tools paired with mediocre talent/skills.

It might be a good time to point out different uses of hardware and software.  
 
Hardware is and often used in tracking.  In this case most often distortion is being introduced.  One could argue that connecting the input source directly to a quality transparent (transformerless)  Mic pre and going straight into digital is actually superior.  It just depends on how you look at it.  Instead of putting the hardware option on top as the ultimate method the moment you reverse the situation and put a clean signal path straight into digital as the ultimate approach then hardware suddenly looks worse.  e.g. for recording a guitar or bass for a rock track then yes the hardware option might sound good.  Not for a clean digital synthesiser though.  It can make it sound worse.  Depends on the music.
 
Once inside then we can do a lot.  I feel that trying to copy old analog gear is actually somewhat silly in some respects. Yes they can get close with some things but not so much with others I agree on that for sure.  At least copying old analog stuff is giving us some interesting plugins.  Which can be used just as creatively as the original hardware, perhaps in a slightly different way.  What is cool is that by starting there and emulating old analog gear has led us into new plugins.  What about the new wave of digital plugins that do things old analog gear could never even dream of.  In that respect they are leaping ahead.  Taking us into territory we have never even explored yet. Amazing stuff.  Personally I find that exciting. 
 
Mixing wise you don't need an SSL console either to get a great mix.  The fact that many top name engineers are all ITB says it all.  When a multitrack is sent out to multiple engineers and the one they pick and love is actually all ITB (compared to the others that were all done on large consoles with tons of hardware outboard etc) then who cares how it was done. That is talent taking over there, not gear related. 
 
Then there are synthesisers.  They are doing an amazing job on those. When they are emulating previous synths they do sound amazingly close, so much so that you don't actually need the hardware in many many cases.  But what about those that are going way beyond anything that existed before.  e.g. Serum for example sounds like no hardware in existence.  It is way ahead in that regard.  So on another level the digital software is light years ahead. 
 
There is all analog hardware, all digital and a combination of both.  The reality is no one approach is better than the other.  They are all great and sound excellent.  What is boring is people constantly putting one approach on top and thinking everything else is so much worse.  They are stuck in a rut with that thinking. They are all great!
 
And back to the OP.  Yes you can get a beautiful sounding all ITB reverb.  There are tons of them out there. Thinking that the only way you can get a nice reverb from hardware is very short sighted.  It is up to how you drive that reverb plugin and set it and use it creatively.  The solution lies with you not with the hardware or software.
 
You have got the sculptor, the chisel and the finished piece at the end of the day.  We are talking about chisels here!

Being an electronic engineer I can add there are things that can be done with (some) outboard eqpt that can't be done with software as fast and in keeping with a live and active recording session. If one is recording the clean and the end point of the tracks the best of both worlds is achieved.

Now there is some software that can be used. The all or nothing grouping is not applicable in today's performing environment.

But choosing by intended use, outboard for live stage performances can be a necessity.

Someone mentioned above....know your tools and intentions.

Joe_A
Being an electronic engineer I can add there are things that can be done with (some) outboard eqpt that can't be done with software as fast and in keeping with a live and active recording session. If one is recording the clean and the end point of the tracks the best of both worlds is achieved.

Now there is some software that can be used. The all or nothing grouping is not applicable in today's performing environment.

But choosing by intended use, outboard for live stage performances can be a necessity.

Someone mentioned above....know your tools and intentions.

Hey
A former EE here too.  I was an analog engineer before I got my MBA - transistors, op amps, inductors...
 
 
I know a custom SHARC or other DSP processor can be tailored for an application - like the UAD stuff - and run rings around native stuff unless you have the 2017 equivalent of a Cray 1.
 
while a lex or tc or eventide reverb may use something besides SHARC processors (not sure), they are custom built for the application at hand.  I used to have some $2000 reverbs (cheap vs the top end) and there was way more control than I find in say a Lexicon 224 from UAD.  
 
I am not saying that plug ins are bad, they are just not pari passu with their rack mount brethren.

Here is a quote from a SOS question about are reverb plugins as good as hardware:
 
Hugh Robjohns replied:
 
Up until recently, most native reverb plug-ins used relatively simple algorithms and were often audibly inferior to even quite modest hardware reverbs. The advent of software convolution has improved matters considerably, and many of these new convolution reverb plug-ins sound as good as hardware units in many situations (to my ears at least).
 
Another very good alternative is to use embedded hardware processing like the TC Powercore or Universal Audio UAD1 cards. These offer dedicated DSP power to avoid clogging up the host processor, and allow advanced algorithms (often transcoded from hardware processors) to be run. The advantage is that everything is still under computer control, and so settings can be instantly saved with specific projects, which makes remixing or revising a project later on much quicker and easier than trying to find your settings notes (if you remembered to write them down!) and/or reconfiguring a hardware unit.
 
This was in 2005! 12 years ago.  Things can only be better right now.  I am tending to believe Hugh. 
 
Don't forget there are some incredible convolution algorithms that are of the amazing great hardware of the past and they can sound sensational. They are out there. You just need to research, purchase and use them. 
 
In a blind A/B test where the reverbs are being used subtly and being returned to the mix at modest levels I think it might be very hard to pick a hardware unit. 
 
Some more reading for those interested:
 
https://www.getthatprosound.com/the-10-best-reverb-plugins-in-the-world/
 
 

synkrotron
Excellent rant and I can only agree... For me, though, well, I simply can't tell the difference...

This is exactly what I was going to write.  I can tell the difference between talent, but not between the $10K hardware and the $50 VST emulation.  So i'm happy with the VST.
Same reason I choose $10 cigars over $100 ones and $2 coffees over $10 coffees.  Sure, they will be slightly better, but the value just isn't there for me.

Whenever the bartender sez "What kind of gin?" I say whatever is in the well.  It's gin.

Yep, every has an opinion. What I see with hardware vs. software:

Benefits of hardware

• Can handle certain levels of energy that software cannot when audio is passed through it. Same reason a Line 6 modeled guitar amp cannot correctly emulate a Marshal stack, but rather sound like a recorded marshal stack played back through a well-designed PA speaker. Hardware can be variably pushed harder in ways that will make it sound different.
• When modeling plug-ins, there is still an A/D process that goes on to 'grab' the character of the hardware. That process might be inaccurate to the most discerning ears. After it's done, that same piece of hardware can be tweaked differently the next day, and the plug-in won't capture that next day's vibe. Even variances in power of the hardware might affect the audio.
• Every piece of hardware is different, even if ever-so-slightly. Just because Chris Lord-Alge has a killer 1176 blue stripe, doesn't mean he has the best unit. A small studio in Louisville, KY might have a far superior unit. The plug-in might beat out CLA's 1176 if it were modeled after the one in Louisville.
• People still rely heavily on great hardware. It's a 'thing', and that keeps the hardware manufacturer's in business. Will that change? Who knows?

Benefits of plug-ins

• Use as many as you want.
• Close an open projects on the fly (ask Andrew Scheps!) and never have to document hardware settings.
• Many plug-ins are modeled after hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware most users can never afford, and specific units you can't likely ever own, yourself.
• They're cheap in comparison, even though that sounds redundant of the previous point.
• Use them as many times as you want.
• Hardware varies in character. Plug-ins typically do not.

I personally believe the difference largely revolves around money more than quality, and there's a highly subjective nature to which sounds better. Blind tests are always better comparison than mentally knowing which you are listening to. The best hardware won't provide good results with bad engineering. A faulty hardware unit might also be inferior to a good plug-in. The D/A and A/D conversion might not be good enough to reap the benefits of hardware.

If you don't have a huge budget, you can get every bit as good (or better or worse) of an end-product from plug-ins as you can from hardware, where you can spend more time using software at lower cost, and go right back again in a year and revisit the mix with very little effort. Remember, it's not about what you hear, it's what they hear.

If I could afford all hardware, I'd have it. I've had great hardware and loved it. I no longer need it because most clients I see don't know the difference, or don't care. 9/10 sessions I have are all in the box, including Mastering.

Just another example of going "in the box" for major production: I saw The Book of Mormon in London's West End when I was over there. Being a major play in one of (if not the) best theater districts in the world, production values were top notch, no expense was spared. Live music, of course, which was excellent. After the show I had a look in the pit. It was a pretty small group, less than 20 musicians, a drummer, a few brasswind players, a few woodwind players, a few strings players, and two keyboards... hooked in to iMacs running samplers.
 
Here you had a production that could have anything, and did (seriously the sound system in the theater was amazing, gave powerful, present, distortion-less, sound in every seat without loud and quiet zones) and computers were what they chose for doing the instruments they weren't going to have actual copies of.

Another situation where software is very interesting is when it not only emulates hardware very well but it will often extends it and takes it into new territory. Something hardware can never do.  It is fixed and reached the end of its line usually. 
 
For example here is an emulation of the famed Lexicon 480L:
 
http://relabdevelopment.com/product/lx480-complete/
 
Not only have they given it all the original 480 algorithms but they have extended it well beyond and added new ones. Same with synths. They often have classic and extended versions. And the extended versions are usually amazing and take an old synth into totally new territory. Very cool and interesting.
 
Non software believers might want to check this out as well. Pretty revealing:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNDQzFTPcj8