Oz, I can surely relate to your statement about when it comes time to put the hammer down, you want the oomph to be there.
Personally, I thought the Granites were quite strong, but it very well may be the other amps outdo them here. One thing you may want to do is to check the bias, it may well be off. After retubing, I noticed that even when they were biased at 10 mV, well short of the 40 mV, the sonics did not change much when I actually then adjusted them to spec.
You could also try talking with Don Hoglund, owner of Granite, to see if biasing the amps higher does anything for you powerwise. From my own experience, he may be babying the tubes, as after about 4 years, I measured the JJ KT88, and they just about measured new. I was more than surprised at that. Of course, these may not be the amplifiers for you due to the power requirements. In which case, maybe something like the Quicksilver V4, with double the output tubes, would more fit the bill?