Damn, that's dead-on my experience as well...
It actually sounds great on a master buss or stereo mix, but is kinda disappointing on guitar. The tape emulation side is nice, but the tape saturation is, well... not very tapey. Especially when hit hard, it sounds more like a diode clipper to me than actual tape. I guess the sound of tape saturation is quite variable, depending on the machine itself, as well as the head & tape type/age, but I would have liked something a bit more unique.