When will there be decent classical music recordings?

"The power of a string quartet is not hearing the body cavity resonances of each instrument (though if captured realistically it could be an enhancement), but the music itself.""

If you played in a string quartet or concert (playing is surely one of the best listening options too) your sound image is quite different to listening and you get the sound texture - which is my desire. Where do they stick the microphones on normal recordings? At the front?
Surely a few bang in the middle gives half a chance of presenting the music. And there are so so many dull recordings out there. The majority it seems. When I was younger (in olden times) I had to go from shop to shop to find different and half decent versions of my favourite pieces. Now that is not possible so it is very hit and miss about coming across something worthwhile.
And why was Von Karajan so popular? Always had the most dull as dishwater interpretations ever possible! Killed the music!

As I mentioned, if you want recordings with mikes throughout the orchestra, check out the Deutsche Gramophone catalog.  They place mikes throughout the orchestra (almost in the laps of the musicians, in the early years), run everything through a mixer, and let their tonmeister, together with the artist, decide on the final balances.  Ironic that you call out a DG artist (HVK) who used the very technique you're calling for.  There are also plenty of mikes throughout the orchestra used by most recording engineers--Decca, EMI, Reference Recordings and most labels, in addition to their arrays in front of the orchestra, liberally use spot mikes in various sections, especially over the woodwinds or a soloist, to add presence to those instruments, depending on the particular piece being recorded. 

I found it illuminating when I listened to master recording files of the NJ Symphony Orchestra and other artists (such as the Kissin recital at Carnegie Hall) with Tim Martyn, their recording engineer, on my system running through his mixing console.  We were able to play with the levels of all of the many spot mikes throughout the orchestra, as well as the Decca tree with outriggers in front of the orchestra and the spaced omnis out in the hall used for picking up the hall ambience. I found that I'm not a purist by any means--if I were, I'd prefer just the omnis for the sound I heard in the hall, but that sounded way too vague and distant, and not at all what I'd heard in the hall.  This was especially true with the Kissin concert, where adding the mikes placed over the piano to the omnis out in the hall gave the performance life and presence that the omnis by themselves lacked.  Tim, as do many of today's classical recording engineers in conjunction with the artists, will use the spot mikes judiciously to add that presence and life to the music.  You would call for more of that, I guess, but as an amateur performer (singer in a number of choruses and vocal ensembles) and member of the audience I far prefer a slightly more distant perspective so I can hear the blend of voices and instruments called for by the composer.  To each his own.