To some extent this is an occupational hazard. I have been guilty of too much layering in my own recordings, in an often futile effort to make up for a certain lifelessness that is a product of the studio environment.

Like many of the people who posted to this thread, I tend to prefer recordings that aren't overly dressed up. But I have found that the hardest type of recording to do is solo one-guitar-and-voice recordings. On stage, that works great; in the studio, it can be very tough to make them come alive.