Promise! I've got some travelling to do and I'm back Thursday. I promised my wife I wouldn't open it until my return. 

Did you drop the xtra coin for the XL?
T

Yeah Tom, I did. Being in the software business, I'm always leery about being left behind with updates. In my head I can easily conceive of some future feature that only works on the XL. I figured this was such a big investment (can I call it an investment?) that it was a bit of an insurance policy for the future to spend the extra bucks now.
 
I haven't raised the scratch for the floor board yet, but that's next on my list...

I've never felt that happy with the way my Tele sounded through amp sims - there's a fine line between twangy and brittle and the two sims that I've been using up until now - Guitar Rig and TH2 - seem to err on the side of brittle, to my ears anyway. And my best attempts to "warm" the sound have ended up a little too muddy. They're obviously fantastic pieces of software and don't get me wrong, I've had some great sounds out of them, but I've just never been wowed and I always felt that other people (with different guitars) were getting way better sounds out of them than me. So perhaps certain sims play nicer with certain guitars. 
 
Well I seemed to have confirmed that over the last couple of days by playing with Amplitube. I had the free "bare bones" version installed a couple of years ago and I was quite impressed even with basic amps you get with it. But I never pursued it until a couple of nights ago when I demoed a couple of their Fender sims, liked what I heard and bought the Fender collection. I have been very impressed indeed with these amps and for the first time I feel like I'm playing through the real gear (I haven't played through one for ages because of my apartment situation). They just seem to bring out the best of my Tele and it's been an absolute joy to mess around with them. The clean tones are gorgeous and the crunch sounds very authentic to my ears. I don't use any high-gain sounds. I also ended up shelling out extra for the '65 Princeton model because of its clean tones. Man that custom shop is dangerous. I've also ended up with the Dr Z "Z-Wreck" model for its very modern, detailed sound and awesome twang, plus the Orange AD30 because it sounds so smooth and creamy. My Tele never sounded this good through the "Citrus" model of Guitar Rig, that's for sure. 
 
I've also enjoyed playing with different mics and positions a lot more than I have in Guitar Rig and TH2. It's like I can hear a lot more difference between them than I can in the other sims. I don't know if that's because they're more realistic or less realistic (I have absolutely zero experience with miking up amps) but whichever, they just sound great. 
 
So with a combination of my new Babyface and Amplitube, I'm one very happy chicken picker for the time being 

I started with the Fender and Orange collection, Sharke and those 2 sold me. I picked up the whole collection last time they did there group buys. I find the Amplitube sims very hard to beat. The best ones seem to be the newest sims, which only makes sense.

I really like the new S Gear, 57 amp they added to their sim collection as well. I haven't used it in a song yet to see how it sits in the mix, but just playing it solo, it sounds awesome. The way these new sims react while I am playing are close enough for me, that I don't notice really that I am playing a sim. Once in a mix, fx, compression, limiting, I think they sound great. I keep having songs forum guys tell me that my tone is really good.

If I played live a lot, then it would be a no brainer to go the Axe Fx route. For me, the little that I play live, my real tube rig and a handful of pedals gets me by, for now.

Another thumbs up for the S-Gear '57 model. Very nice to play through. Though S-Gear is my favorite amp sim right now. I've never tried Amplitube's fender sims. Maybe I need to demo them.

I've always had mixed feelings about AT - though the Hi Z button on the Mackie board recently made a world of difference in its favour.
 
One thing I've always found though is that, of all the amp sims I own, AT is the most "lively".  At times, other amp sims may nail certain amp sounds a little better and impulses can be more pleasant (the fact that they typically produce much more low end than the AT cab sim probably contributes to that impression) but in the end, they always sound a bit static by comparison. To me.
 
I can't speak for Axe FX or Kemper, my observation is based on what I own - POD, POD HD and practically every software amp sim available on my platform.

I did an initial write-up of my Axe FX II XL experience here:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/My-initial-thoughts-on-the-Fractal-Axe-FX-II-m3082300.aspx#3082959
 
In short, LOVING IT! :)