canedge
Refugee
As an aside, I agree about all the "layering" in AB, and I think that's part of the reason a remaster would not necessarily result in an improvement to that album. I think it sounds just the way they want it to, or as close as they can get without screwing it up. At some point, where the "sound" of an album like Acthung Baby is so central to what it is, if you mess around with it too much Achtung Baby is no longer Achtung Baby. I suspect the band (especially Larry, I'd imagine) agrees with this. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hear a remaster, for comparisons sake if for no other reason. But there has to be a compelling reason (beyond $$$) to do a remaster.
One of the many rationales for remastering is that when you play a track like WOWY on the radio next to something like Ga Ga, it is just not fair. The circumstances under which they were recorded are radically different and therefore they sound disjointed next to each other. It is like when I used to make cassette tapes and volumes would fluctuate from song to song because they came from different sources.
If your music is 'low' then it is seen as 'less.' Not good for the artist. The second rationale is that many of the artwork has been compromised over time to a lot space for whatever. This applies to Joshua Tree and maybe October but less so with AB or anything post 1990. Another and finale rationale, espoused by Billy Corgan, is that most of the music made in the 1990s was intended for CD players whereas X percentage of listeners are now either using headphones or computer speakers.