Hi Sean,
thanks for sharing your findings and your enthusiasm! :-)
I agree with you to a large extent, and as a matter of fact I sometimes tried to match (and ideally surpass) a wide variety of 3rd-party libraries as closely as possible when I worked on all the presets for MIRx, just as some kind of finger exercise. Especially in case of string libraries, the five "sizes" of VSL string sections (Dimension, Solo, Chamber, Orchestra, Appassionata) allow for countless options of different colors and assets, and the results one is able to achieve within MIR are often surprisingly close to the 3rd-party counterpart (... minus all the noise of the samples orginally recorded in a hall ;-) ...).
There's just one thing I would like to put in perspective, though - only to avoid the impression for the occasional reader of this thread that there's something intrinsically wrong with MIR Pro's Dry/Wet signal ratio. :-)
You're absolutely right that changing the relation between the dry signal and the room information derived from its position within a chosen Venue is a simple, yet effcient feature to sculpt the sound of your instruments. But please keep in mind that there is not one "proper" amount of mixed-in direct (unreverberated) signal: The other library you were mentioning was made especially for contemporary movie scores - which is a perfectly valid approach*), but most certainly not the only one to orchestral recordings in general. More "classical" oriented orchestral work requires much more "room" in the final mix than the typically drier, more "artificial" movie scores with lots of acoustic elements competing with the actual orchestra.
Personally I tend to think of MIR to be set to some kind of "pop music mode" when I change the global Wet/Dry offset to something like -30%. :-)
*) Sidenote: I know the sonic preferences of Alan Meyerson (the scoring mixer of Hans Zimmer and apparently one of the driving forces behind "Spitfire") a bit because I met him in person and had the honor to work a few days in the studio with him. I _adore_ his ability to sculpt the sound of an orchestra like it would be a rock band running full throttle! 8-)
/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library