Good summary of the process. Agreed that there is far less going on than on pop releases.
The sentence quoted above is the only part I didn't understand. What do you mean by "not amenable"?
DSD is such a tricky representational format that there are few devices that can operate on it for common operations in recording production, like EQ. Or, at least, DSD is such a small niche that Sony and others have not seen fit to develop the tools for DSD. And, they would be much more complex than their PCM equivalents. There are DSD DAWs and such, but they are more limited in functionality than PCM equivalents.
Part of the problem is that there is no instaneous signal level represented in DSD. Signal level is really a function of the cumulative integral of the bits since the beginning of the track. Each bit in DSD is sort of like a delta to the signal magnitude, but it is actually more complicated than that. DSD is just Sony/Philips' name for pulse density modulation.
But, often for editing, engineers will take a short snippet of DSD, convert that to 352.8k PCM = DXD, manipulate in PCM, then convert back to DSD. Mostly, it goes unnoticed, but engineers don't want to overdo it.
So, why do some labels and engineers love it? Beats me. But, they claim it sounds better. Others dislike it, probably mostly for the recording production limits it imposes. However, it also generally means that engineers have kept their hands off most usual, easy recording tricks, possibly resulting in a "purer" recording.
It does sound a little different to me, typically softer in the highs than hirezPCM when no EQ is applied. But, when I play SACDs, I normally convert DSD to 176k PCM and apply Dirac room correction. IMHO, that changes the sound for the better much, much more than DSD vs. PCM.
It is also true that the absolutely, most beautifully true to life recordings I have ever heard were unedited, non-commercial DSD256 Mch recordings by an engineer friend. John Atkinson, Kal Rubinson and music critic Andy Quint all agree after having heard some of them. They do sound spooky real in DSD playback, but with limitations in my system. My normal PCM 176k/Dirac playback of them is extraordinary.