Teddy, beware the lure of a false dichotomy. Specs can be extremely helpful if they're clear and credible (which from most of the major manufacturers, they tend to be)--but no one here has said that specs are enough on their own, so please don't argue with a "straw man," OK?
I mean, I've used microphones that I would consider quite crapulent today, but at the time they were a step forward for me. I started out in around 1970 using Advent (= bottom-end Beyer Dynamic) microphones, and my next step was a pair of Sony ECM-22P. To my ears now, the recordings I made with those Sony mikes can practically cut glass, they're so hard-edged (and they were also very noisy). But at least they had some output above 6 kHz. So I'm not one to say that "trash" microphones have no value.
Nonetheless there are some microphones which have much lower noise and distortion than other microphones, and there are some microphones which have smoother, more extended frequency response and maintain their polar pattern across a far wider range of frequencies than other microphones, and those things are very important sonically. There are some microphones which are far more reliable than others--about half of my microphones are more than 25 years old and I have one pair that I've probably recorded 1,500 concerts and recitals with, which never failed in all that time. These criteria may not be what everyone cares about consciously all the time--a mediocre mike in a good place can sometimes outdo a great mike that's poorly placed. But I have no qualms about saying that some microphones really are better--sometimes much better--than others.
The microphone in my telephone handset just isn't as good a microphone as the microphones I used this evening to record an opera performance. There, I've said it; now tell me I'm wrong, that I could just as well have used a pair of the microphones from my telephone handset, because there are NO ABSOLUTES (an extremely absolutist statement in itself).
--best regards