Ah, we are getting in very interesting territory now.
Let's be honest. Most instruments we use nowadays are basically consumer-oriented and not musician-oriented. Therefore their interfaces are trigger oriented and not performance oriented. In itself there is nothing wrong with that. It's basically the ultimate tool to democratise music making.
The revolution of the analog subtractive synthesizer was not, as is so often suggested pure real time voltage control as usch. Voltages where also used to control many earlier instruments like the Theremin, Ondes Martenot, Trautonium and who has ever heard of Hugh Le Caines brilliant Electronic Sackbut (You guys might!). I personally do however think the real breakthrough in the Moog-school of thinking was the ADSR. For the first time it was possible to preprogram a time variant function.
But there is nothing wrong with that as such. Even players of "real" instruments depend on such "preprogrammed" functions. As an accoustic player you know that different approaches to twanging or bowing your strings will lead to different responses (like for instant a differant formant content and the corresponding decay.
So I have no qualms with any programmable function. What does however bug me is that even the use of ADSR's is nowadays underrated. Start whatever Youtube video on a new analog machine and the envelopes are hardly touched. On the other had people are almost pulling the filter controls off. So there is a need for direct control after all but the real problem is that it remains rudimentary.
I've started my "carreer" going the proprogramming way becuase it gave me / us the wide pallet of all different synthesis methods.. Then I bought my CS80 (when still just about affordable) and learned the restrictions of the trigger oriented school by simply learnin to appreciate it's real tiem control options, which are just as much part of it's secret as it's sound is. I have since then learned to use use both aspects in a better balance. I have, for instance, by now "built" myself a system with CS80 type expression and modeling versatility. I even constructed my own uniform keyboard adapters to make it more natural to play then the conventional piano. (http://www.brassee.com/instruments.html#starship_one). The next step will be to integrate the wonderful Axoloti in the setup.
Isn't that just the beuatiful thing about this technology anyway? We can all search for our perfect balance between all possibilities. There is so much stuff out there that one can indeed almost "construct" his own ideal system. Never where the times for making music better.
But as always: These are the best of times. These are the worst of times. As so often the popular output produced with all this technology only uses a fraction of it's possibilities. That is the real fight but alas one that can hardly be won. Luckily the whole Hakan etc. trend is a long overdue antiodote. Now the price only has to come down.
To end on yet another positive note: After yet another false start by cocking up the Paypall process I at last received my personal Axoloti yesterday. Hurray!
