Many of them exist solely on government grants. I was delighted to see the Canadian Government cut back on factor grants for the simple reason that many studios are getting kids in there for x number of hours, just to push out a product that will satisfy the grant criteria.
Spleen Gland: You have made several valid points most of which have been made on other threads at one time or another.
Nowadays you have to work at taking the polish out of the recording as opposed to the analog days where every gap had to be filled just to bury the hiss.
As for compression... The music is compressed to death and our ears are getting lazy because of it.
Try listening to classical music (where this happens less) in your car and you'll see what I mean. You'll spend so much time twiddling the volume control that you won't get a chance to use the mobile phone at all.
In short, the type of sound you put out is an artistic choice but try getting a studio to do that for you.
Mick: Every instrument is placed exactly where I want it and the Tenor Guitar is deliberately understated for reasons that the spleen guest has so aptly pointed out.
Oh and I've finally come up with the answer to "What is Folk?".