As a musician, composer, engineer, and producer, I say, again "NOTHING WILL EVER BEAT THE SOUND OF A REAL DIALED IN TUBE AMP AND A WELL PLACED MIC!"
Amp sims are just some creative tools to fill a particular workflow. We can not write them off. They will be around a LONNNG time. Let's just hope they get better as we go. That's the most we can hope for.

Never say never.

As a guy with some experience in the amp world I find sims to be amazing. They do stuff real amps can't do without causing a fire. In real life I'd never dream of driving a Marshall 800 into an SLO 100 while using a half dozen time based effects. Never going to happen, nope.
 
When I play a tube amp and speakers, I can really hear and feel the tone, it becomes very personal. What you are hearing determines how you will play, and dynamics really come into it. There's not that many controls so you focus on your technique to give different sounds. 
 
I had the flagship Line 6 2x12 combo the year they came out. Kind of like programming an old Korg M1 through a little LCD display. It made great sounds but in a live situation it would just disappear. Kind of like a photograph. When looking directly at it you see this great image. Turn it sideways and it disappears. I find most of the sims are like that. They are like playing a recorded sound. Because of this I don't interact with a sim the way I would with a live rig.
 
I have many of the major sims and I'm still looking. My JTM 45 gets no love in the apt. My new focus is a little thing I am calling the Producer series. Small tube amps designed to deliver the best clean I can make. They are almost hi-fi, but provide an excellent base track to work with. I can record with that and then tart it up with plugs if required.

Just stumbled upon this guy on YouTube, having lots of fun with cheap gear...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51KLpcqoZJE#t=113
 
I've heard people put up the most over the top critics about Marshall MG's. Hearing that fellow play one, you kind of forget about the cheap amp...
 

Like Frank Zappa once pronounced...weedly....weedly....spew. Amp or amp sim. Tone is relative. And subjective. In the extreme. And can be found for those seeking it...almost anywhere. Thank goodness.

Incidentally - I've just finished recording a cut using... My old POD 2. :/ It's actually what worked best for this part - better than my tube amp, better than my POD HD, better than all the software I've tried.
 
The idea had been bugging me for a couple of days, and tonight, tired of fiddling around I hooked it up. Voilà - I'm done, and enjoying an early break. :)
 
Jimmy Page school of music production - whatever works...

Rain

 
Jimmy Page school of music production - whatever works...

Word.  

I would have a hard time naming a bad amp sim. These days we have it good! My current favs are S-Gear and Amplitube, but I'm not into metal at all. If I were, maybe I would like Revalver more. Bias seems good with the little time I spent with it, but I'm very happy with my two choices.

Sidroe
As a musician, composer, engineer, and producer, I say, again "NOTHING WILL EVER BEAT THE SOUND OF A REAL DIALED IN TUBE AMP AND A WELL PLACED MIC!"

 
Except, of course, a well chosen amp sim.  In the mix you can't tell the difference if it's done right IMO.

I read something somewhere, it may have been here or maybe on IK, I don't remember but it seemed like a good thing to remember.
It is that an amp sim program like Amplitude with virtual cabinet and microphone choices and placements deliver much more highs than a real amp and microphone. So tweaking the upper end or maybe a low pass fliter can make it sound more realistic. 
One thing is sure.. YOU are more critical of YOU than anyone else is unless they are jealous. 99% of listeners hear "a guitar". It is like worrying over your shoes, no one else cares... they are only thinking about their shoes. Now if your shoes have mud all over them and holes in the soles.. people may notice. Same with guitar sim/amp, most people will never know if you don't tell them. "Is it live or is it Memorex"? LOL
 
I guess YMMV but it's a something to try.
Jb
 
@ Rain I also read somewhere or saw an interview about Clapton's tone on the Layla album. I do not think it was direct from Dowd but IIRC from someone he told. Eric was into taking (IIRC) a SF Champ and laying it flat on the top of a Leslie cabinet. I don't remember what was said about the microphone placement. (It could have been a BF, but I'm pretty sure it was a SF but I know it was a Champ and they really changed very little from BF to SF). I want to say it was an Andy Johns interview but I'm not sure. Yeah, whatever works. I wonder how many players have multiple stacks onstage but are playing DI through a computer, POD, or some small amp miced back behind the fake stacks.
 
I've always thought this would sound good and it is an example:

 
Whatever works!!! LOL