[ejwells]

Call me a whiner if you like, but your simple facts sound a lot like an opinion to me. I would say waves plugs are industry standard because they were one of the first companies to produce "decent" quality tools, and that's just what they in my opinion are: "decent". Waves does NOT sound "great"; perhaps "good", but there are better alternatives for most Waves plugs.

most important plug types being EQ, compressor, limiter and reverb. Waves excels in none of them. They were first to market and that's it; they sound good, but not great.

"Waves plugins have aided the production of hit record after hit record" isn't an opinion.
"Waves plugins sound great" may be an opinion, but it's an opinion that's based on hearing their stuff used on great sounding recordings, and it's also a WIDELY HELD opinion.

I have McDSP plugs, Bomb Factory, Sony, Focusrite, Joe Meek, Izotope, and others.
I tend to use the Waves compressors and EQs as much as I use the others.
For certain things I prefer them.
Waves IR-1 is the best reverb plug in I've ever heard.
That said, I often use RVerb too, even though with my APA I could essentially run as many IR-1's as I'd ever need. Again, certain applications call for certain tools.
Do you think I use the RVerb because I like inferior sounding reverbs?
Or would you posit that I simply don't know what I'm talking about.

I've worked with engineers in Detroit, Nashville, Chicago, and LA.
All of them use Waves stuff.
Do you suppose they all use Waves plugins only because Waves has been around the longest?
Unlikely, I'd say. But hey...that's just my opinion.