worth $200? prob not but fuck it i already have it and i rly like it. BUT I will say that Echoboy is great and the only delay I like using more than Abletons stock Echo for my workflow. but glad you asked this i tried to ask Quix when he was using it on stream and he was like "huh? what?" lmao. ive tried messing with multiband stuff like trash and saturn but 9 times out of 10 im able to get most of the character i want out of serum and if camelphat isnt enough some erosion and eqing usually does the trick.i also made my own multiband camelphat rack because im a fucking nerd. If im not using Camelphat im using Abletons Saturator.
im with you my main distortion is Camelphat (PhatFX in Logic) it just seems to work for me it might be my favorite plugin in existance with it compressor and limiter algorithm on the output. Yeah Decapitator is one of those mysteries for me i see so many artists use it but whenever i try im like damn this sounds shitty. But why do all that when you can throw on Saturator and crank it. sometimes its good on drums in very light amounts and if you gain stage before so its not going in too hot that also helps. I totally agree i find i can rarely push it at all and anything other than A is too much. That's why I could clearly hear a difference, because "my sound" on amp is about nuances and letting amp to "breathe", it's not about cranking up everything to 10 and I could clearly hear how something is mimicking but not doing things properly, how things should actually be and the warm, organic, natural sound wasn't there and the way how the sound is changing based on strumming. But, it's the same thing you were describing. Maybe things changed or improved in recent years, but honestly I don't care.
That's the main reason I never used amp sims because they always sounded completely flat to me and I couldn't hear those nuances and like they work with 1 and 10, there's nothing in between. Since I was a kid I found my "own sound" which I like which was cranky sound on guitar amp, not fully gained and distorted sound and you could easily hear how the amp is "breathing" and all the nuances how the sound is changing only based on strumming where basically every note is unique simply because you are not strumming with the same force all the time and the amp is reacting to it with a different sound and a friend of mine was always dissing me about that sound and calling it "poor man's distortion".