Hear hear PFR! For me the whole point of having a gazillion watt rig is so you can turn it down and make it sound sweet. The point about a 'conversation area' is well made too. It's a fine balance. One trick I use when musicians ask for more volume is to leave plenty of headroom in the monitors, and just turn up those. The musicians don't know any different. When the audience ask for more volume, I do what I can, but keep an spl meter handy (there's a free one for the iphone these days) to show when we are getting to damaging levels.