Time investment in composition, practice, and performance outweighs time editing. The market is flooded with editing tools, and people seem to be more attracted to editing possibilities than the composition. Some DAWs lack rudimentary composition tools, and focus marketing to editing.. and some consumers scarf that up hook, line, and sinker.

Many one-album bands found this out the hard way. Some spent years performing and perfecting that first album, so album 2 in six months didn't make it. A take is quick, but editing is not... an entire album is less than an hour to play through on one instrument.

A friend of mine still does most of his work on a 4-track since it forces the "one-take concept" as well as "have the piece pretty well composed before you ever hit any record button." Ironically that mindset reinforces performance versus editing technique.

In addition to what everyone else has said, my guess is that also the multi-tracks don't include all the stuff they didn't use in the final mix. Including dead space between sections in one track. 
 

mettelus
Time investment in composition, practice, and performance outweighs time editing. The market is flooded with editing tools, and people seem to be more attracted to editing possibilities than the composition...........................

This hits the nail right on the head.  Great tracks equal easy mixing.  To many of us, including myself at times, try to take a mediocre track and polish it to a great track. Most of the time it ain't gonna happen.
 
I use amp sims because I don't have all of the amps in a sim and I have to be careful about the volume levels.  Many times I will record the guitar straight into Sonar then add either a sim or an effect.  The advantage is that I can try different amps, amp settings and/or effects without re-recording.  I know that this is a very subjective matter to some so YMMV.

I'll add (though it is a little off topic), that being a primarily keyboardist, there was a time (in the 80's) that I had to have every new keyboard, rack module, et al., that came around (some of which I still have today - Emu EMax HD anyone?) and then I realized I was only chasing a quick fix for 'that' sound or something.
 
Then I got serious and got rid of most things and decided to really take that time to learn what say, my Roland D-50 could do (all those parameters, envelopes, etc.) and exploit it to the max.  Admittedly, I learned a LOT.  Then I also went to work for Chrysalis records for a couple of years too back then as a hired hand.  Nothing like working with those that have their 10,000+ hours doing their craft.  It really is like magic.
 
(and sadly, I don't think I retained any of that magic after my stroke - but that's another story)
 
Like others have already mentioned, it pays to capture the best version of the track you can - you will never be able to 'really' fix it in the mix.  I recall telling the singer to 'do it again' through this particular passage - like 20 times and they were not happy.  In the end, the song won an award for the vocalist and production.  They forgot about the amount of time it took.
 
>>> Time investment in composition, practice, and performance outweighs time editing  <<<  says it all.
 
Good luck and enjoy the journey!
 
 

Well I guess this all hinges on whether or not what Chuck said about FX being printed to tape is true in this case. Because if it is, then the stems in question aren't "unmixed." How much do you know about the source of those stems and what state they were in? I sometimes do all of my EQ and compression (and other effects) in Sonar, and then export the stems with FX included to import them into Mixbus to get some Harrison color & analog summing. If someone were to take those stems and put them together without adding any effects themselves, they might well think "wow these sound decent and I haven't added a single EQ." 
 
I've heard a few songs in multitrack format (for example, Rosanna by Toto) and they most certainly had some effects printed with them, for example reverb on the vocals. 

Cactus Music
It's why I don't even use Guitar sims. I get the guitar part to sound the way I want to fit the song,,, then I hit the button.. and I play my part all the way through if at all possible. 

You can do the same thing with amp sims, I get the sound I want with the amp sim and it doesn't change. The main reason I use amp sims is because I can get exactly the sound I want.

sharke
Well I guess this all hinges on whether or not what Chuck said about FX being printed to tape is true in this case. 

This was a very common practice. Remember, it was in the days of hardware...if you wanted an LA-2A on 16 tracks, you needed 16 LA-2As, you couldn't just insert the same plug-in 16 times. Also, tracks were bounced a lot. Because you couldn't retrieve the original tracks for the bounce (except from safeties, which due to sync and such was a whole other can of worms), you tried to get the bounces as close as possible to finished.
 
But getting back to the premise, yes, it's great when songs just mix themselves.

I don't print  effects to "tape" and never did even before DAW's. 
Sure, my guitar I'll run through my stomp boxes, but vocals as far I know are now and have always been recorded dry. 
I'm sure the people who recorded those tracks didn't either. Obviously the tracks have possibly been enhanced before releasing to the public. 

jamesg1213
Talented performers

I think many people under-appreciate that many of the most successful performers are truly talented.  We have all seen the parade of no-talents that get propped up to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl and such.  But there really are some great talents out there who approach their art as perfectionists and work very hard at it. Back in the day, I played in a band that warmed up for The Spinners a few times.  They were extremely impressive.  They did the same show every night, yet the afternoon of the show, they would have a heavy rehearsal to make sure they still had all the choreography working perfectly.
 
I have heard that Johnny Mathis did most of his songs on one take because the record company wanted to keep the budget low.  Yet his phrasing and intonation are impeccable every time -- without Autotune or Melodyne.
 
I play in an instrumental quartet with really solid players.  We did a recording session last week to produce some fresh demo material.  It is really a humbling experience because, even though it sounds OK, it is far from perfect and not nearly up to the standards of the best players.  Yes, I can use the studio tools to make it sound just fine for demo material, but it really makes me appreciate just how good the best musicians are.

Music that is really well recorded tends to mix itself. Simple, just adjust the levels of the tracks.
Arrangements that are really well conceived also mix themselves, everything recorded will just occupy it's own space and not interfere too much with anything else.
 
Everything else, like compression, EQ, limiting, stereo imaging, and reverb / room ambience are just compensating for inadequate recording and arranging techniques.
 
Talent just makes the whole process smoother.