With headphones positional audio is great, as an effect, but on even top quality stereo speakers, if you are not sitting still in the centre of the stereo signal, its pretty much a waste of time. Listening to live music in a Pub or Club, unless the drums are miced, its up to the drummer to get the kit to sound right and place the accents. If thats the recorded sound you want then two or three mics should do it, Its up to the drummer and the engineer to get the sound right rather than the easy option of "Fix it in the mix".
Probably the reason a lot of 60s stuff sounds more organic, for want of a better word, is that most of it was recording a performance rather than a lot of parts recorded cold to a click or backing track. Nothing wrong with either method, just different times different technology.