True.
I have to say I never replace with samples, I simply add to what's there. I think it sounds better. It's used like EQ for me, a lot of the time. If the snare is to dull for example, I'll use Drum Rehab over a duplicate of the snare track and add a brighter sample onto what's already there. I just add enough to bring the top of the snare out a bit. It's way cleaner than adding top end to the snare mic and bringing lots more hi-hat into the equation, for me. I've also taken a clean hit of the existing snare, added some hefty HF eq onto it and used that as my sample before.
Like I said, it's not about changing things, just making the recording better, or better for the track.
There is a difference, to me, between polishing a turd, and subtly changing a recording so the final mix suits the song better. What happens if the drummer can't afford a new top snare skin so the snare is dull? Or what's the easiest, best sounding way to improve that for him?
Or for your example about the eq on the kick, what happens if the recording engineer can't hear that when he's recording it? Do you live with it because that's how it was tracked, even though the artist would have missed it on the same monitoring system? Or what happens if that mid frequency sits in some tracks of an album, but not others, and they were all tracked on the same setup?
For me, what we are essentially proving with this discussion, is that all the tools we have at our disposal while we mix are suitable in some contexts only. There is no absolutes in what we do. Sure we might eq certain instruments most times we mix, but is it the same eq every time? Or the same compression? Or the same whatever?
No, it's what suits the song and makes whatever source we're working on sit in the appropriate place in the mix that suits the song the best. Or that's the goal anyways. To get that song across as best we can for the delivery medium.
A large part of the trouble comes from the way things are advertised. An awful lot of people read the ads in the mags, see the endorsements, etc, and see them being advertised as absolutes and follow that. It teaches people half truths. If a musician reads that fixing any little problem is easy in a DAW. Not so much anyone here, but the people who walk into our studios every day.
It generally is possible, but the closer it is to being in time/in tune/recorded properly/whatever, the easier it is to fix and the better it will sound when it gets released.
I'd love to set a band up in a room, have them play a song and that be it, or maybe with some overdubs. It just doesn't happen. It's cheaper and easier to not rehearse and practice as much, and to have me fix little blemishes in the mix. Or to buy and properly maintain good sounding gear.
Unfortunately, fixing crap is as big a part of the job nowadays as knowing which end of a mic line is which. Do you refuse to do it and lose work, or just get on with it? I know which one I can't afford to do.
Excuse the ramble, it's been a busy week.