Here is an interesting article about Spike Stent now mixing "in the box" from Sound on Sound:
"Another development in part furthered by Stent’s move to the US was that he had to change his working methods to suit today’s technology, music, working methods and budgets. After 25 years of swearing by mixing on an SSL, Stent decided to adapt to the current in-the-box method. He is coy when prompted for specifics, but does explain “I mix most urban and pop records in the box now, while rock and acoustic records are usually done via the G-series desk. I like the way that the guitars and real drums are affected by the sound of the desk, and while I’ve been doing a combination of mixing in and out of the box for the last six years, last summer when coming back to England after mixing the Muse album, my assistant, Matty Green, and I had some time on our hands and really got the microscope out to make sure we could get that same sound in the box as from the desk. I had some time on my hands to experiment and really managed to dial that in.”
“Moving to mixing in the box wasn’t a watershed moment, more of a natural progression. Computer processing has become more powerful, and plug-ins are so much better than they were. I normally use shitloads of Waves plug-ins, the E-Channel SSL bundle, I like the Chris Lord-Alge plug-ins, the Waves PuigChild, I use the R-Bass a lot, [Metric Halo] Channel Strip is an old favourite, for delays I use [Sound Toys] Echoboy a lot, and for colouring things I think the [Tech 21] Sansamp is great. I also like some of the Pro Tools 8 plug-ins, even though I’m still using 7.4 — I’m waiting until 8 stabilises. I learned very early on that not jumping straight in with new software was the best strategy. In addition, producers, record companies, and artists are used now to the fact that they can call you, even two months after your mix, and request a change, and you just bring up the Session and five or 10 minutes later the change is made. So mixing in the box is about time and being flexible, and of course it also saves on the budget.”
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/articles/it_0210.htm