I want to make it very clear that calling out @RabeaMassaad and@johnnathancordy was purely for a bit of tongue-in-cheek, comedic effect. I respect both of them and they are amazing creators who I follow, and you should too! I hope nobody is too upset that I played a little joke with the intro :)
Input gain spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bZHaapCiCg4RLIFqTS5KyUUVa4MwaqfxRCYk35Bvdrs/htmlview#gid=0
Edit; Many thanks to @eds4754 who is the person who assembled all this information. This is the missing link, the metaphorical "DPI" resolution we were missing for each plugin. So seriously, thank you again for collecting all this data and producing this sheet.
If you're confused about dBu, dBFS, RMS, peak to peak and all those weird acronyms, here is a handy converter to take you from one to the other:
https://www.analog.com/en/resources/interactive-design-tools/dbconvert.html
0:00 Intro
0:54 The Problem
2:06 An analogy of digital images
3:02 Imaginary, made up things...
4:03 The online discussion
4:55 The Experiment
6:02 The noise floor
7:08 The Experiment, Part 2
7:53 The part that everyone missed
8:54 Compare before and after
9:18 Gain staging?
10:44 The correct process
11:11 Final Words