Clarkcontrol - yes I was making an overstatement there saying they are superior, period. What I mean by that is they are superior in many cases, especially NOT theoretically, but practically. In my own case, and the case of many, many others including probably most of the people here, it is impossible to get live players capable of creating sounds as good as samples on a daily basis, in the areas of intonation, tone quality, range and even espressive articulations. I played for decades in orchestras, bands, ensembles of every kind, and most of them had difficulties just playing in tune let alone higher musical accomplishments. People are very spoiled (not you, just in general) by the widespread availability of the work of virtuosic musicians in recordings, and accept this almost as a "standard" level of playing when it is incredibly rare. So obviously, samples can not successfully replace the New York Philharmonic or some such great collection of virtuosos, but they can replace the Peyoche Symphony and even improve upon it.
This sounds like a subtle distinction, but when you hear music of yours being played for the first time, correctly, in a sampled performance AFTER having it played poorly live - it is not subtle at all.
The other aspect of this is my idealism concerning samples as an art form in itself, and I agree strongly with the concept of the SLI mentioned above -Miroslav Vitous first talked about a collection of samples being something to study, practice and master like a traditional instrument, and it has become that and even more in the years since his library was introduced. Also, I love the idea of 16 horns, 12 flutes, 30 bassoons, etc. and feel that this approach - of using traditional instrumental sounds in non-traditional ways that would be grossly impractical live, has a tremendous potential for artistic expression.