I agree that hearing one's piece played perfectly on VSL or some samples is infinitely more rewarding than hearing your music massacred by a local group. Community groups are great er, okay with the classics. But once you get into compound meters and modernist playing techniques, oyyyy, that's where things get dicey. Hell, I heard a horrible performance of something as straight ahead as Dvorak's 9th Symphony. The string section's intonation was so awful I thought I was listening to a cHarles Ive's piece with quarter tones abounding everywhere!
Obviously all of us would love to hear our stuff played by the London Symphony Orchestra, but that's just not real world thinking. The VSO to my ears is the best approximation out there, bar none.
Now if I could just rob a small bank, I could get it!