Nope. If I'm going to use plugins there's good no reason to commit since I can make better decisions when I'm not distracted by the job of tracking.

JoaoSpin, post: 451043, member: 41554 wrote: I can see how this might me good to tame transients on a bass for instance, but does it affect sound quality in a positive way as well?
Having said all that, do you ever set up plugins that way (when you're taking a break from the outboard gear)?

There is 3 levels available now. The outboard gear, the dsp effects (done by some audio interfaces) and the Vst software plugins.
Both outboard and dsp are often good to print on the way in if you get the exact sound you want. DSP interfaces often let you print wet and dry signals so you can have both to work with.
As for the VST plugins, I see no reason why to commit on something you may want to work on at mix time... Unless your computer doesn't have the power to drive all the plugins you added to your project which may indicate that you used too many already ;)

I never print plug-ins even though I can. I don't consider the use of hardware such as EQ and compression to be "printing" since this is usually something done to attain a quality track. If I was making a decision on time based hardware that would be printing to me.

When I've compared outboard compressors / limiters during printing (specifically 1176 or la2a) to a DAW, the tracks  sounded noticeably better.

When I compared the same approach using Apollo /UAD the tracks sounded noticeably worse.