Reply to The coming tide of Controllerism

Programs like Traktor Pro, Itch or Scratch Live, Torq and Virtual DJ are all great apps and they have all been pushing to become the "Best of the Best" in Digital DJing, which apparently means "offering a good product but also more bells and whistles than than the other guys" when it comes to music control (a.k.a. more than just two turntables and a microphone... which apparently, is "Where it's at"... thank you, Beck).

If you've picked up a DJ program and a controller, you've probably heard about a really advanced controller or seen "sidecar hardware" that can do a bunch of neat things in addition to your standard controller needs (see "Where it's at" comment above).

So yeah... Serato has formed a "Survivor-like" alliance with Ableton to make "the Bridge" but is it worth it? Could a person do just as well with a good controller and Maschine? How about the Red-Headed stepchild no one speaks about, Torq 2.0; it has a lot of what Bridge offers how does this rate?

If you've been looking at hardware to control the software you too have probably been doing this and getting a headache trying to put the pieces together in your head (or even on paper). I happen to have a MacBook Pro and a Twitch playing on either Traktor or Itch. Sometimes I believe "Wow, I could buy another $500 worth of Hardware and get ready for Bridge (via Itch and that Lite version of Ableton Live that comes with the Launchpad or APC 40) or I could get a Maschine and go that route... or even get the Steinberg CMC piece-meal controllers to add on to what I have already ?"

Can we get at least a hardware-with-software jamboree round-up of these attempts into crossing the divide between DJ and Producer, a place many might call "Controllerism Land?"