If you surf Clist like I do no doubt you've seen everyone dumping their single effect pedals like they carry the plague, which is good for pedal lovers.  What do pedals still offer that multi-effects processors aren't able to provide.  If you are just tucking them away in a rack drawer, it can't be you like stomping on them. Are some of them just so unique in their function that their flavor can't be replicated in a processor?  I was most recently using a GT-1 and have had some decent rack mount processors over the years and was never left with "well, my delay/chorus just lacks that certain je ne sais quoi."

@carl1000

Overdrives are hard to simulate.  So single pedal OD's will also sound good.  Most anything else with sound fine using a processor nowadays.  They are so much better than years ago.  It is hard to simulate a tape echo.  You can get close, but some analog stuff just sounds better.

Pretty much this.  I run a Helix into a FRFR for one setup, and the other a couple of OD type pedals in front of an amp, with a Eventide Space in the effects loop.  I can dial in the Space pretty quick and get the exact sounds I'm looking for.  I've tried with the Helix reverbs but end up wasting my playing time fiddling with a preset trying to get the same sound, so I sort of gave up on that.  So I keep both setups and use which ever one I'm in the mood for.

The Helix has so much going on, and I'm no sound engineer, so I just ended up buying a couple of preset packs from a few of the well known patch builders and found a dozen or so that I use for most everything.  This was after the newness/novelty wore off and I got frustrated after trying out dozens of patches I downloaded from CustomTone and not finding anything I really liked.

Pedal boards look cooler.

Eh, it boils down to whatever floats your boat. I currently have a Helix Rack & Control, HX Stomp, a G-System, a Boss VF-1, and some stompboxes. They all have their good and bad points.

Right now, in the band I play in, I use my Helix Rack and Control with a EHX Pog2, and a Duncan 805 in the loops. The Pog is there because the Helix's pitch effects suck. And the 805 is there because, while the drives in the Helix are excellent (the OCD model for instance nails my real OCD V4), it doesn't have an 805 and I like that particular drive a little better than others.

All in all, though, Helix can do everything I need. It's just that I find some of the effects lacking, although for me, they're a bit unnecessary for me at the moment. The reverbs are good, but not great. They're plenty good for a band situation,  they just don't do some of the ambient stuff that Strymon, for instance, does better. But that ambient stuff gets lost in 99% of band situations, so the point is moot for me. The aforementioned pitch effects suck, they just don't track well. The rotary speaker effects are ok, but they don't quite do it for me. But like I said, that stuff is kind of bells and whistles for me in my current situation. But beyond that, it's been excellent.

Now, all that said, the Rack is overkill for my current band. And since I've gotten my HX Stomp, I've been playing with it in my spare time, and I'm 99% sure I'll be building a pedalboard around it before too long. That'll let me still use the stuff I like about the Helix and add other pedals to make up for the stuff I don't, without the pedalboard getting too big. So I guess I'll end up with a little of both.

Only time I did gigs was in college in the late 80's and I played through a Roland rack that had drive, reverb and delay, all knobs and no display but dumped that into an old Ross Phase Distortion in the loop of my Peavy Backstage 50, at some point later went to a Boss SE-50 but I was just leisure playing by then (90's?).  I haven't used a traditional pedal since then...

I'm a fuzz nut.

I have yet to find a multi-effect that has a good versatile fuzz.... and the ones that do offer an 'interesting' fuzz, only have one trick.
Probably why I have 17 different hand built fuzz pedals at this time.
I'm also fond of good OD pedals... I have yet to find a multi-effect that can do the things my Klon (and various klones...) or King of Tone can do.

Being a fuzz nut is also why I'm not on board with the Kemper thing yet.
I'm about 90% sold on em, but they just don't handle big wild fuzz the same way a good tube amp does.

My first dive into effects in the 90s, as a poor young teenager, were the multi-effects boards, like from Zoom and Digitech.  I hated those things.  All the effects sounded like crap, but mostly I just hate pushing buttons, scrolling thru menus, and adjusting parameters.  I just built my first real pedalboard, and it's all single pedals (and only eight at that).  I want to be able to turn a knob, and see where it's set.  The most complex pedal I have is a TC Electronic Flashback x4, which I selected only because it has a tap button, and can store three presets.  Any more complex than that, and I start to check out.  If you work in a studio and record, and can see where you might like the multi-effects and the tweaking.

The ones in the Helix can work well, but you need to do a couple things. First, the obvious one, it has to be the very first thing in the chain. Second, you have to play with the input impedance setting. By default it's set to auto, but when left that way, it's far from optimal for a fuzz. And FWIW, the input setting can work miracles with an amp model as well.

Which DigiTech? I had a RP-20 and got alot of good tones out of that thing.

This is ARFCOM, get both!

I've always been a solid state amp and effects rack kind of guy.  Only actual stomp box I owned was/is the Metal Zone.  

I'm currently using a BOSS ME80, and my amp is a Marshall Code 50.  Between those two devices, I have nearly every Boss effect, and Marshall Amp, Cab, and effect.

But, I just bought my first 'boutique' pedal: Have a Black Wolf on the way from Wounded Paw Audio out of Canada, primarily for my Baritone.  I drool over pedalboard photos of my favorite artists, and haunt the various pedal board groups.  I think it's the techno-geek in me, I just like gadgets and pairing shit together in different combos.

I've been thinking lately about getting a small tube combo amp, something like a DSL40, or maybe one of the Blackstar Tube amps.  I've never played with a real tube amp before, so I'm curious to see how it compares to the modeling that both my devices do.  And, it would be really nice to have a proper effects loop and actually use the pedals in the correct way.  Have to actually worry about the order shit is placed in my signal chain.  Nerdy stuff like that.

But damn, that's a fast way to spend a lot of money!

I used a RP-1 for a very long time till it died.  RIP 1994ish-2010ish.  Kind of amazing that it basically took a cat peeing on it to finally make it die.

I also have a RP-100A.  Pretty neat little box, but yeah, it is a PITA to make any adjustments on.

Now, my BOSS ME 80?  Nothing but KNOBS!!!!  Millions of KNOBS!!!  so nice.  And, you can plug it in to the PC to use software to do even more crazy adjusting, plus the whole DI into your DAW is a handy feature.  (My Marshall Code 50 also does DI.  So easy now compared to all the mixing boards and adapters and power concerns and shit we used to have to deal with!)

Yeah, the RP20 wasn't the easiest to program, but It did have a fairly straightforward interface. The most infuriating multi effects I've had to program is my Boss VF-1. If it didn't have good effects in it, I would've gotten rid of it long ago. But by far, the easiest to program is the Helix. So easy, very, very easy.

RP-1 fist bump! Those got pretty warm plugged into ac power.

I started with a few stompboxes then an RP-1. Over the years, I've also had an ART SGX-2000, a separate tube preamp into a dedicated FX unit (Jackson/Alesis?), Peavey TubeFex, and maybe some others.

I'm have a couple Boss GT-8 at the house, usinf using one for one amp's effects and stompboxes for another amp. There's an Eleven Rack for recording in the basement.

I have and use both, mainly a BOSS GT-8 or my array of single pedals. I actually prefer the single pedals simply because they seem to be easier to set and experiment with as opposed to a multi effect pedal, also simple to change on the fly as opposed to playing around with an ME pedal.

Plus if your ME pedal craps out, you're boned if you're playing a gig, if you lose your delay pedal or whatever, you can keep going. Everything has pros and cons, what works for some may not for others.

Stomp boxes are easier to set up . They are also much more expensive in the long run. I have about $1300 in my peddle board and it is nothing elaborate.

I have faith that in the future, I'll likely have a multi-effect processor (and likely even a modeling / solid-state amp), but for now multi-effects can't do stacked fuzz or stacked/driven fuzz for shit.

My most used pedal board is a BlackArts Toneworks fuzz (usually a Rabid Mammal or Pharaoh Supreme) into an old Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz... both pushed by either a Klone/Klon, or other OD/Dirt... put that into a Rockerverb with a low tuning on a Gibson and I'm in sonic heaven (i.e. Sleep / High on Fire / Matt Pike type tones).

Someday digital will match/surpass it, but for now I strongly prefer old tech.  I love playing SRV type blues when I'm playing solo and multi-effects and modelling amps can cover that, but for doom/sludge type playing that I do with friends?... I need old school tech to get the grind.