FWIW - I don;t see why things have to be so polarized eg: either you must be A) or B)....if people disagree with the SA handsoff producer view why not take a step back, consider some of the points and perhaps consider what ideas you may choose to utilize to enhance your own producing excursions, or ignore it completely,
Don't see the reason why some seem to get annoyed or offended by the thought of a different way,
Its strange but the 2 most contentious issues on PSW seem to be Steve Albini's album 'production' methods ..that and the dreaded analog versus digital debate,
its not like we are discussing religion or politics yet thats what it starts to end up resembling,
FWIW 2 - I have never even considered it until now but thinking back over the albums I worked on over the eons as a muso , hired gun, band member or whatever - invariably the sessions that were SA's 'worst case' scenario with the svengali producer taking over and imposing his vision, musical ideas, guitar parts etc - were the most unpleasant and stress-filled situations where there was sometimes even a pall hanging over the studio...
hard to get good stuff to tape under those conditions.
One album from this category actually turned out well for what it was & sold a bunch, the rest were costly flops, very high fail ratio to $ outlay..
And the more 'artist-run' or handsoff producer sessions were typically fun and relaxed for the most part and produced some results too generally when the people involved were talented with good ideas , musical skills suitable to the genre / material , not too much elephant tranquilizer etc,
some of them sold well in their genre, back when records still sold,
Any of the flops were cheap flops to boot so not too painful,
FWIW 3 - I can totally relate to the SA view, I find it an interesting take and so fully against the grain as per the typical artist / producer / album dynamic,
Funnily, most of the projects I have been doing as a 'producer' (though I see it more like a coordinator) for the last couple years, the approach has been more like some kind of uber-svengali control freak where I put arrange the material, work with vocal artists, mix it, arrange the artwork etc and the artist has very little or no say, thats the way it works and everyone is ok with that generally, at least once they hear the final mixes..note: this is pretty typical for the genre I am working in,
If I were getting paid to work with self-contained rock bands who had their sound and songs together I think I would lean more towards a documentation, don't mess with the band, approach.. except with lots of DX7 overdubs.
Having been on both sides of das glass, there really is something to be said for the psychological elements in recording, beyond the 'art' or the physical technique alone,
I think atheletes and musicians are not entirely dissimilar, except perhaps for their cardio health, in that capturing the killer take is like running a race or a sports match so would you want to be in the role of psyching someone out just before the big game or helping them feel secure 'in the zone' to perform at thier best?