Well, in my opinion the clearness of the sound depends on the distorion you are using. For example, with my GNX1 I set the gain at about 70-80/99 and I get pretty nice sound. However this is not the case with some bad quality processors, such as Zooms, they totaly suck. I had one Zoom 505 and when I played with lots of ditortion the notes mixed in one big blur.
But you are right, it is better to use as little as possible distortion for the sake of sound.