Reply to Got Bit by the Controllerism Bug!

So after getting my MPK mini, and testing the pads with Traktor (and failing because AKAI's editing software is FAIL and the pads don't put out the CCs I tell them to and run through the knobs...) I am hooked. I am getting rid of the mini, getting a legit 61 for my composing, and a separate controller for making mixtapes and (eventually) doing live stuff.

What is recommended as the best all-around controller these days? I am on a budget, but I can save up if it's worth it...

These are what I could believe of:

MIDI Fighter (obviously, but expensive, and I don't need anything cool or durable yet =D)
Novation Launchpad (this seems the obvious choice so far...)
NI Maschine (price, but is the software worth it? or go Live or Traktor?)
APC20/40 (the 20 is down to the same price $130 as LP on amazon!)
X1
MPD (or 3 or 4 LPD8 or Korg NanoPads attached to eachother :-) )

Seems a lot of choices to me, not sure if I missed any, but it seems to be coming down to LP, Maschine, or APC (I could be wrong!) the only thing about the LP that's getting me is on the MPK I mapped one of the knobs to XFader bc I don't have a mixer. I don't really do normal mixes, but it's nice to have a tweakable X somewhere...

I want to be able to do everything I need with one controller (I never use platters, I'm not a scratcher, when I do live stuff I prefer to fade to a new song, then clone the deck, and set up loops and/or cue points on one of them to mix a song with itself... but I'm kind of new to this!)

Thank you incredibly so much for any advice you can share!!