Drives are always a problem, at least for me and always has been. Biggest revelation for me was to finally understand what the fuck they are really meant to do and achieve. It didn’t help that forums tend to put ideas into us that contradicts pedal design.
Timmy (or any true overdrive) is a great example. No… it’s not a good standalone drive pedal into a clean amp. It will never be that, no matter what people say. They are of course not wrong, if it happens they like that result. But they are wrong….
Oh, and a fender amp needs a tubescreamer, so every one gets a tube screamer for a twin that doesn’t get turned up, or even worse don’t understand the concept in the digital modeling realm and then says the amp or pedal model sounds bad.
And then there’s all these designs that are designed and do sound great with a specific type of amp style. Total rabbit hole… and it basically requires amp knowledge to understand.
Then pedal designers try to solve a problem by making pedals that mimics amp model specific distortion (aka amp in a box) in an effort to to give people what they want but the people don’t understand this concept either.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this… haha… it’s my own frustrations with drive sounds mixed with not accepting how things are supposed to work, because I’m stubborn.
But the truth is that drive sounds into clean (non distorting, breaking up) foundations has never sounded anywhere near as good as a good turned up amp with a specific pedal design. Very hard for me to accept….
History know these recipes are like gold for our ears and it’s like all the angel choirs are in harmony and god is smiling.
Anyhow…
I would say that I kinda accept how the new Nobels mini 2 tend to melt in good with a clean base… it’s not to fat or to humpy but has adjustment for both if needed. But it also has a very nice inherent breakup/distortion character, smooth… maybe a little to smooth sometimes, but definitely better that to sharp non adjustable clipping that needs a breaking up amp.
Also liked the Barber GC, it’s definitely able to be a neutral good sounding drive with clean setups but it had a very subtle poke in the high mids that nagged me and my telecaster already has that built in.
Then there’s the Fairfield stuff. The Barber shop is one magical piece of pedal but it’s very “characteristic” and needs to be 100% accepted by the user. I tried it and it was 90% from me and I should accept it but I know my personality would try to fight it. But I really like the “jfet” type of stuff and many times wonder… why isn’t it more common than it is… it sound and feels awesome. It’s the sag I think… it reminds me of the sensation with an amp that isn’t stiff. 
Good luck with drives MetroP… I hope you are easier to satisfy than I am