There's a lot of truth to what you're saying. Although you do need quite a few effects/tools to obtain certain tones. I know it's true that a lot of tone comes from our hands, but I can't stand when I see people on forums (not you) who respond: "their tone comes from their hands," when people ask about what setup certain artists use lol. Let's be realistic: more tone comes from the gear than the person's hands. You're not going to get a metal tone without some kind of overdrive distortion