Graphic EQ is hard to do right. And if you do it right it ain't cheap.
Since I do most of my live music playback through my PC, I use the eq in Foobar2000. Even so, I've found that I've gotten picky about the live recordings I listen to. If they don't sound good without my having to work at it, they don't make the cut.
In the days of Mics > Analog Tape and then sharing tapes, my eq would get a workout as there was no good way to master for most people. Now that we are working in the box, I find it much more rare to find recordings that need EQ.