You clearly love this HX narrative but you're missing something, imho.
When you put on the market a floor multi FX unit you compete with all of them not only the ones you think you're competing with.
And while we might agree that the VP4 is aiming to the strymon,, eventide & crowed the everyone-else-crowd doesn't disappear.
Therefore, when a player form the everyone-else-crowd look for a floor multi FX unit compare the VP4 with the hxfx he might prefer the latter because costs less and offer more (from his needs).
Some players just need tools that makes gigging easy.
With love,
HotRats.