Been thinking more about the application of gain in today's recorders and realized there's a distinct reason why 32bit float makes complete sense and leaving out traditional level controls a logical final step in the evolution of audio capture gear.
Most solid state recorders made today have trim knobs, but they are not true gain pots for adjusting preamp and/or analog gain ahead of the A/D. They are essentially for digital gain only. With fixed gain preamps and digitally controlled line levels in menu settings, having gain controls to adjust digital levels in the field isn't necessary.
Back in the day, we wanted to maximize the performance of preamps, since how hard they were driven made a difference in sound, and also prevent analog brick walling in the line level signal before it hits the A/D. With that structure now flipped, the only thing you can do wrong in the field is cause digital overloads. You can't stop analog brick walling, nor optimize the performance of the internal preamp like we did with recorders in the past.
Considering this, it occurs to me that 32bit float can't make you a better or worse taper, it simply removes a part of the equation that only has a negative risk, digital clipping, with no upside to being able to adjust that stage manually. With the evolution of recorders moving away from user control of any of the analog portion of the signal, if 32 bit float should become the standard for A/D, it's almost inevitable and probably should be.....