Well, when working with the X32 in the studio, I normally use the build in preamps. I do have some of the fancy stuff like Neve 1073, Telefunken valve pres and such. So I know first hand that the impact of micpres to the overall soundquality is highly overrated in my eyes. I know, that sounds provocative, but I really belief that first of all you need a good song, than good musicians and a good song arrangement. If one of these three fails, you will never get a serious result. Nothing wrong with the X32 pres, in fact I really do like them and I think you can really achieve professional recording results with them and the X32 in general!
Everybody has its own idea of recording. Personally I was very soon sold to "in the box" mixing. Never understood the desire to mix your DAW tracks back trough a desk. Maybe when doing some acoustic music, or other music genres, that does not need heavy tweaking. But the deal breaker for me is "total recall". Mixing in the box is the easiest way to recall an entire song. So I use the X32 mainly as a soundcard, but with the advantage, that you can set up highly elaborate monitor cues for the musicians in no time and with nearly zero latency. That is just great! You got your build in talkback mic, can mix Mixbus cues and P16 cues, tweak the monitor signals with EQ/Dynamcis/FX for the musicians, all in "no time". I can say by now, that even when our nice Harrison analog desk is back from recapping, I will buy a X32rack or Core for the studio. And I'm quite confident, that it will be used a lot here. Especially on productions with tight budget. The X32 is a real time saver in the studio, at least for my personal style of recording.
Concerning VST plugins...Yes, I use a ton of them. Basically there is no mix in the last years, where I not used the FabFilter stuff, the Waves CLA classic compressors and the Waves SSL stuff. Concerning this demo production, I made a little screencast, that shows some of the plugins that I used during the mix. Because it is a demo recording, I mixed and mastered the song all in one. It is all about time saving here;-)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/S1_MixdownRemember.mov
Christian