Is the term "true bypass" just a hype? Is the term designed to allow boutique pedal manufacturers to charge insane amounts of money for their products?

Or do you think true bypass make a huge difference?

As far as I understand it, true bypass means the signal goes from input jack to output jack via a switch, when the pedal is not engaged. It doesn't go through all the "meat and gadgetry" (the electronic parts) in there.

So if you have many pedals but you are maybe using only a couple at a time, your tone will not suffer much since the signal is bypassed through all the electronics in there on those pedals you are not using.

Then there's the all these terms you see on guitar forums. Like "virtual bypass", "hardwire bypass", etc. There's the term "buffer" and some say true bypass isn't needed if the pedal has a good buffer, etc.

I don't know enough about this stuff in order to be able to shed any light on it, so can someone step up to the plate and give us a good explanation of all this? (cookies for you, or maybe )