Input gain has nothing to do with the type of volume control.

Varying types of volume controls is why you can't accurately compare them apples to apples, unless both are log based controls measured in dBFS at max output (and this may or may not be doable in a real world scenario without damaging equipment) OR you have an Audio Precision.

The quick and dirty explanation is the more input gain, the worse you make your noise floor and therefore signal to noise ratio. Sure, we could make our units noisier, in the future, in order to make up for low output from source devices or from content, but I highly doubt that will ever happen. It is not the companies philosophy to sacrifice our units performance to make up for inadequacies elsewhere.

No need to apologize, but to be honest, you can't expect Outlaw employees to know that your Rotel has X amount more gain, and to state it as fact without having ever seen or used it. If you'd like to discuss input gain vs types of volume controls, feel free to call me after the busy season.