I appreciate that, and I do have a lot of experience, BUT, I try not to dissuade or too heavily promote one specific item over another, because everybody uses their stuff differently, so what might work awesome for me, might sound terrible for others, and visa versa.
I run my amps on the hot side, so that I can dial the guitar volume to go from "clean" to crunch dirty. I use 3 pedal dirt circuits, all of which I use for solo boosting...a powerful overdrive/boost, a distortion, and a dirty boost.
That's what works for ME, but certainly not everybody. That's why I TRY to leave these types of discussions open. This particular pedal isn't very impressive in stock form. Modded, it's much better, but it's still not a great pedal, imo. HOWEVER, it DOES work for some (Steve Vai uses a Keeley modded DS1, as I recall), so, at $30 or whatever, it's certainly worth anyone who's interested, trying it out for themselves.
The older ones used a different op amp, so they probably do sound different. Better or not remains a purely subjective opinion.