Hi Res is not a magic bullet that will get you better sound. It is simply a tool that has the capability of transporting a higher level of SQ to you. But you need to keep in mind that how a recording is made and mastered is far more important that the technology that transports it to you. There are all kinds of people that get to stick their fingers in the sonic pie on its journey from the recording venue to your living room and they all have an effect on the final product. Think about it for years we have been listing to LPs that have been reissued, remastered for different formats and remastered even for the same format. How many times have we listened to different versions of the same album and had them sound different. Surely some of that can be due to newer equipment or better technologies in the physical product production (e.g. 1/2 speed mastering, better vinyl formulas or just heavier LPs), but often we here differences in releases of of supposedly the same thing., like reissues of the same album all on standard vinyl.
We would all like to think that a recording is an accurate representation of what the music sounded like in the venue that it was played in. But in reality the recording is really more like what the production team thought it should have sounded like when it was originally played. Take a modern orchestral recording a full symphony orchestra is recorded with dozens of mics and them mixed down in the control room to what somebody decides it must have sounded like in the hall. Very often the people making those decisions spent the entire time in the control room and never actually heard for themselves what it did sound like in the hall. And then further on down the line a mastering engineer will further EQ the master tape as it is cut onto the lacquer. Not this may be a necessary part of getting to sound onto an LP and required to offset some of the limitations of the LP itself, but none the less it is putting somebody's subjective thoughts on what the final recording should sound like and again the folks making those calls very often were no where near the original recording (and often don't even work for the same company).
I would dare say that what you are hearing as hyper detail is not as much a function of the hi res format as it is the mastering of those files. Enhanced detail can easily be done in the recording or the mastering by boosting the EQ it certain frequencies. An that can be done just as easily on LPs or CD as it can on hi res releases. It is just a matter of what the production teams wants the recording to sound like. The best you can hope for is something that you enjoy listening, regardless of how close it is to the original sound. And this doesn't even get into things that are totally created in the studio. Things like Dark Side of the Moon or Sgt Pepper were completely created in the minds of the artists and production team. so who is to say what they are "supposed to"" sound like.
Normally I would think that this is moving into the realm of a thread jacking, except for the fact that the OP was the one who directed is towards this discussion. If we want to go into this any deeper perhaps we should split this off to another thread (unless of course I have beaten this far enough into the ground to bore all of you. 
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I have a number of hi res files where the extra resolution is used not to produce etched in your face hyper detail but rather to more correctly present the ten fine details that provide us with spacial cues and room ambience. Those files use the ability to render more detail to provide you with a soundscape that makes you feel more like you are in the same acoustic space with the musicians as opposed to the hyper detail that gives you the audio equivalent of the visual experience you have sitting in the first row at an IMAX movie. But hey, a lot of audiophiles are detail junkies and like that kind of sound.
I guess what I am trying to say, in a kind of long winded way, is that I don't think that your impression of high res file is as much of a funtion of the file format is it is of the production process adn the value judgements and decisions of the folks involve in that process
Well said.
I think you missed my point, which in reality is exactly what you eluded to: production and mastering values or, more accurately, the lack of it.
I was in and out of the studio for over 50 years working both sides of the glass. As an engineer, mixer and mastered I was sometimes guilty of exactly what you eluded to: eking every bit of high end out of the recording knowing how much would be lost in the transfer to production master by most repro houses and manufacturers.
Another BIG issue was the entire transition to digital audio in the '80s and early '90s. So much of it was done on recorders that were giving 12-14 bit resolution and processed by really crappy SS gear and through equally bad consoles. Not everyone could afford a Neve or SSL console. Add to that poor tracking of anti-aliasing, stoned studio people (hell, in the 80's cocaine was considered a vegetable) and sources like Columbia Record Club turning out absolutely terrible product.
Case in point: my daughter had a CRR sourced copy of Bonnie Raitt's "Streetlights" CD. I had the same one from Record Warehouse. Her copy was dismal in comparison to mine. Perfect Sound Forever, right?
Don't get me wrong. There have been a lot of wonderful recordings mastered by greats like Ludwig, Grundman, Watson, Clearmountain, Williams and a lot of young guns. Unfortunately in the contemporary music scene and in less commercial music like I prefer terrific mastering tends to be the exception, not the rule.
A lot of the music I like comes from the '60s through the 80's and newer indie recordings of acoustic music and eclectic groups. All too often, hi-rez does them no favors.
Bottom line: a lot of recordists and masterers today have all of their taste in their mouths.
