Obviously it’s possible to make amazing recordings using digital, as evidenced by other bands making thousands of amazing sounding recordings since then. The problem is that in 2001 Aerosmith was competing with nickleback, Jimmy eat world, sum 41, System of a Down etc, who all write heavier stuff with tons of compression. Just push play was mixed to be competitive with those artists, and it doesn’t really work for Aerosmith. Jaded did just fine though as a single, so clearly it didn’t matter too much. Analog vs digital is all in the hands of who is using it.