Forgot one thing re. 'Reverb'. I call this the 'John Barry' effect. Next time you watch an old James Bond movie, the reverb on the some of the string cues are almost Tiki Time. If you were to hear 'John Barry Night' at your local 'pops' concert, it would probably -suck- unless half the players were off-stage like in Wagner. Clearly, the composer knew he could use that as a studio effect, like a guitarist with a delay pedal. A guy writing concert music wouldn't even be aware it was possible.
Frankly, most of use get the majority of our ideas about 'timbre' from movies and games... and much less from sitting in a room with no distractions and listening to a CD of an orchestra recorded in a 1,500 seat hall.
I think what feels -normative- in terms of reverb has actually moved away from reality in the same way that most people mis-perceive -lots- of things nowadays because we're saturated with 'bigger than life'. Another example: ever notice how FUCKIN' NOISY the world is? And how bright... even at night? For most people, it's never -really- 'quiet' or 'dark'. It may -feel- dark or quiet, but if you went out to a desert you'd go 'Wow! I forgot.' That's how I feel about DAW reverbs. The truly realistic amount no longer sounds like 'enough'. And I kinda blame movies. ;)
YMMV
---JC