Okay, I've never been to one of these meetings before but I guess I'll begin by saying, "My name is Royal and I'm a lipstick on a pig-aholic!..."
 
I guess it started with Melodyne editor? I mean I tried to stay true to my scruples but with one god damned click, the take could be fixed and next thing I knew I was hooked... With improvements and double precision 64 bit engines, before I know it, I'm using high quality dynamics processing to turn a lack lustre, lump of proverbial into something better than passable... *shudders* It actually became *deep breath* polished and comparable...
 
Flash forward a couple years later and I'm doing it every day.
 
I can't stop.
 
It's like, it won't let me.
 
I think I need help?...

maybe? maybe not? I think part of the equation is the style of music you are creating... but that's another thread<G>!
 
Here's what I do (advice valued at exactly what you paid for it!)... my background includes a couple of decades of editing tape with a razor blade, spot erasing, and manually riding the faders. So I pick and choose my editing tools based on one simple rule - if I could have, or would have made an edit back when my tools were rudimentary I will make it now. Otherwise, if the problem genuinely takes away from the track I'll find another way to fix it.
 
Same goes for processing... I used filters and dynamics processors then, and I use them now. I use them differently - now I can 'afford' to have a compressor or equalizer on many more tracks than I could have ever afforded then.

Which is not to say I don't take advantage of the tools available to me!
 
I LOVE being able to undo an edit if I goof it up - WAY easier than putting a sliver of tape back!
 
I am getting better at using tools like AudioSnap to conform sequenced tracks to tracks played live. While this was never necessary when it was tape only, it can add a great deal of life and realism to sequenced tracks.
 
Every once in a while I will record a track that is just amazing, a great, if imperfect, performance. At which point Melodyne or Auto-Tune can minimize the offensive moments, and rescue an otherwise great track.
 
The other thing - tools like Melodyne, lots of compressors or delays, etc can be used as sound design tools, the likes of which we never dreamed of in 1977!

@wst3 - Mad respect for working with tape! My only experience with that stuff has been a one day sit in with a geezer who had so much knowledge of audio past and present, I felt like I didn't belong in the same room. Watching him listen to the song, make notes and start live mixing on a board with no motorised faders or any recall capabilities, had my jaw on the ground. He had his notes sitting there like a sheet of music and his tweaks were like a performance in themselves. Hearing the master reel played into the DAW blew my mind! I was thinking it takes a fair bit more tweaking (countless sends) to get that fatness if your working direct digital. I'm not saying it sounds the same now. "Comparable" perhaps? (There's that word again) But not quite the same.
 
That being said, I am waaaaaaaaay too lazy for that sh*t. Awe inspiring it was. But I can't help but use (maybe overuse?) the tools we have a mere click away. My D.O.B. binds me. You understand?...
 
I actually fear I have become somewhat of an enigma. I get annoyed that people are trashing audio with their own overuse of eq, bass boosting sub actions on professionally mastered tunes. But at the same time I have fully embraced ITB because it's cheap and easy (some might say nasty.) Mainly easy. Hence, LOAPA...

I had that happen many years ago when I first discovered the Aphex Aural Exciter and later the BBE Sonic Maximizer, hardware versions. I put them on everything! And if setting the knob at 3 sounded good, then setting it at 6 had to sound twice as good.  lol 
 
I ended up entering a 12 step program to begin the healing process.
 
 
 

Is the first step realizing that you don't need Waves Mercury?...

Royal Yaksman
Is the first step realizing that you don't need Waves Mercury?...

Absolutely !  They even had a large picture of the box on the wall to remind us.  lol 

wormser

Royal Yaksman
Is the first step realizing that you don't need Waves Mercury?...

Absolutely !  They even had a large picture of the box on the wall to remind us.  lol 

 Noice! I'll bet someone would have cracked every meeting and opened that box just to see if the installers were inside?... "C'mon, Frank, you know it's empty! Lenny opened it last week and, Dean, the week before that... It's supposed to be a symbol of sobriety and you're turning it into an unbridled farce!!!" 

Royal Yaksman
Is the first step realizing that you don't need Waves Mercury?...

I am doomed then.

bapu

Royal Yaksman
Is the first step realizing that you don't need Waves Mercury?...

I am doomed then.

I fear we may all be doomed... Has anyone ever officially expired, found drowned in their own plugin list? *nudge wink*

The technique you describe in your OP is formally called Turd Polishing, and has a fine tradition going back to the first models-turned-crooners of the late 50's. Back then they didn't have Melodyne and had to do their trickery the old-fashioned way, using uncredited pinch-hitters. Nowadays, it's a much-improved process. You just find a cute girl, autotune and quadruple-track her, and instruct her to strip to her skivvies for "live" performances so no one notices her lips aren't moving with the lyrics.