In my opinion its dish specific, you can try tarting up a simply basil, garlic and salt tomato sauce (with wine, lemon juice, a hint of chilli, etc) but the base dish is an untouchable powerhouse, baguettes another one, just off the top of my head, sure theres many more.

I don't think this applies to chilli, there is nothing magical about the combination of onions, beef, 1 type of chilli and tomatoes that couldn't be improved by adding more complex meatiness (pork, beer, worcestershire sauce, stock) or adding more complex chilliness (variety of chilli types rounds out the chilli effect to hit a more broader portion of your senses without overpowering and exhausting a single frequency). I'm not a student or professional, but thats just what matches my taste after trying every recipe I can, obviously everyones tastes are different, and this is also an issue with using premixed ingredients. Without being able to adjust them or understand them you can never improve the dish to match your own taste and are forever stuck in this above average zone that works but never improves and that's a sad way to enjoy cooking.

Also, I'm not questioning the truthfulness of your anecdote but how does a judge (never mind a non-foodie) not tell the difference between gravy granules and real gravy? It doesn't even look the same. Not big into meatloaf so if if the gravy is not served as a sauce then I can understand.