Plenty of hit records were(and are) done on 192's(heck, plenty were done on black-faced ADATs
). I have a good friend(with LOTS of gold records to his credit) who not only swears by them(the 192), he prefers them to the new IO boxes. My 2 cents, but at his level, its his talent and not the gear
I'll start believing the hype if I manage a gold record this year(having recently moved to HD IO boxes)