Jim, thanks, but you never come across as mean-spirited to me.
In my view, based on my experience, conceptually and in practice, over-damping in audio is similar to overdoing some other things in audio: Make a recording studio control room too acoustically damped and it will sound lifeless (all the rage in the late 1970s, as I recall). By any means (compression, EQ, circuit refinement, etc.), remove all the unruliness from a desirable sound source and it will cease to be what you liked in the first place. And so on.
Perhaps the concept applies only to things whose raw sound is characterized by imperfection.
For example, in the aesthetic aspect of my vintage tube collecting (I collect for rarity or history, too, not just sound), I not only accept but specifically value the quirks and inefficiencies of particular tubes. Among 12AU7 and 12AX7, for instance, the storied "neutrality" of the audio produced by Telefunken, or the mind-crushing precision and headroom of La Radiotechnique, have no more aesthetic value or legitimacy for me than the characteristic '1950s black plate sound' exemplified by original manufacture by RCA, Sylvania, Raytheon, and Philco. I love to hear a pair of fine 1953 Sylvania 12AU7 in a home stereo preamp, straining and failing to reproduce the punishing dynamic range of a well-recorded symphony orchestra. It sounds so beautiful to me, and I would never want so-called refinement to replace it.
