One thing you forget to mention, but were kind of indirectly saying (I think), is the "reliability, consistency, convenience, and performance" leads directly to

One thing you forget to mention, but were kind of indirectly saying (I think), is the "reliability, consistency, convenience, and performance" leads directly to creativity in a way that in-the-box stuff can't replicate. Personally, I need to get to the sound I'm designing quickly for my creative flow to continue, if I fight the computer's UI (and let's face it, the vast majority of DAWs and plugins have terrible UIs) then it kills it for me. I end up self censoring (not even bothering to try) and the music that I end up making ends up more 'rigid'. I think if you're the kind of person has infinite patience, then yeah sure, you could probably achieve similar results, but I think for many that's not going to work. Another aspect is the true analogue modules, which software still struggles to emulate well. This matters for some modules/synths more than others, but there is a quality difference. Again, with time, one could make a digital synth/module sound good, but for me it's the same problem of killing the creative flow.