I think modeling amps now days are great. Like you, I like the versatility of the modeling amp and the last amp I bought was a modeling amp. I can get it to feed back just like a tube amp. As long as I was happy with the sound on stage, I would not care if it was tube or solid state.
The science and electrical components simply were not as advanced when they first started making modeling amps and they got a bad name.
I did jam with a buddy for a few hours Saturday, he was playing through a older peavvy and over all I liked it's sound better than my modeling amp. But they were very close.