FIrst of all, I'd like to say thank you to everyone here that is helpful in their responses, but also those that ask questions that also prompt myself (and others) to approach things differently and explore a bit to educate yourself about rigs/blocks/effects etc. Big shout out to those who post video tutorials (Jason Sadites to name a primary one for myself, and others who just escape me at the moment). Those tutorials have helped me think about things and approach things without a guitar in my hand and allowed me to really do some neat things.
Why all these words? My Stone Temple Pilots band had our first headlining show this past weekend. While the venue was, a'hem, not the grandest.....the crowd was into our setlist (after another band opened for 2 hours). All that is great....but my real satisfaction comes from programming my Helix and being happy with it, but also being efficient and well prepared for sound guys as we do not run our own sound and I dont like to let that control go away easily.
HOWEVER.... While we performed great.....at the end while tearing down, I asked the sound guy (who I had already qualified as a great guy, knowledgeable, geeky like me with gear, and an overworker in his field compared to others) how my guitar sounded...and he said it sounded great. I asked what he did to help me get in the mix to file that information away when I make my next adjustments...and his response, "Dude, I didn't have to touch your guitar. I ran your guitar flat. Thats the first time I've ever run a guitar players rig flat. Anyone that has to EQ your guitar in a mix, needs to retune their PA!" I immediately put my arms in the air, and with a fist pump added a 'F*ck yeah'!! I then asked how my lead boosts were, and he said they were great. He literally had to do nothing to my guitar all night.
I've never felt such satisfaction from a group of 25 presets in my playing life. 30 years, 16 of that is running direct (Boss, Line 6, Fractal).
Just wanted to share as it was 2 days ago and I'm still proud of those comments.
Edit: Oh, and yes....for those that say the stock cabs aren't good enough. Maybe in a studio realm they lack something a special IR does have. But my presets in this set all used 2 stock cabs in parallel.