Do I need or want preamp tone controls

I agree, no tone controls, but I highly recommend a pre-amp with a balance control-- and there are some very good ones such as the Sonic Frontiers Line series, ARC LS25, Levinson, Bryston, Adcom, VTL, Herron, and others. Cheers. Craig

Adding to Dill's: You don't need tone controls if all your CD and vinyl recordings are perfect.

Just to let you know, the majority (like 98%) is not always right. Personally, I love them since they are out of the circuit when not in use - at least in McIntoshes. I find satisfaction in having the best of both worlds.

It would be nice to have tone controls that could be taken out of the circuit.Tone controls would help when playing poorly recorded [Bright/Harsh] CD's.JD

There have been many times when I found tone controls helpful. As Aball notes above, McIntosh tone controls are completely out of the circuit when in the centre detente position. And, yes, I do use Macs.
It's all about choice!

Blub definitely go for the tone controls.
Most equipment used to have tone controls, but a lot of marginally designed equipment had them & was so compromised; those filters just weren't very good.
Better designed equipment still has them available, & they're certainly great to have when you need them (there are still many compromised recordings) & there is typically a tone-bypass button which keeps them out of circuit when unneeded. Just to name a couple that I know of, there are defeatable Eq controls on Cello & Accuphase, & Luxman product which are very good. There are some theoretical phase disadvantages & some frequency overlaps when active in-circuit, but if the control makes a marginal source sound better to you then is it indeed actually worse? Of course not, if it's more pleasurable then it's not worse than nothing. Don't let the purists inexperienced arguments dissuade you. Elimination of Eq is just an excuse in justifying the cheaper way out.