I think this is a great community of diverse opinions. I appreciate the 'rigid' opinions and advice for what they are....some I've taken to heart, some I've taken with a grain of salt and tried something different than what was recommended. In the end though I believe you are right that its a personal journey. For me, I had a vision of what I wanted my system to look like and after nearly a year, I have pretty much arrived at what I wanted...complimentary modular to a couple of synths and a drum machine separate from modular and everything interfacing with Ableton Live with the ability to use the CV capabilities built into Live...all the while asking questions, appreciating the diverse responses and opinions and making a decision based on that and the research/reading I do outside of MG. I only have a Rackbrute 6U and Rackbrute 3U for modular and honestly, I'm feeling ok with that for now. I have so much to learn and experiment with. I can see myself getting another Rackbrute 6U at some point to attach to my Minibrute2 instead of the 3U and using the 3U as an 'experimental' box of sorts. I like the construction of the Rackbrutes and the flexibility they offer for transporting and mixing/matching with the other devices I have. I only bring that up because its probably one of the areas of modular where I've taken more of a fork in the road from the advice of getting a big rack but I appreciate where that advice comes from for sure. we have some similar musical tastes but thanks for shouting out a couple I've never heard of (Merzbow, Drexciya, Oren Ambarchi...will be taking a listen to these in the coming weeks). Much of what I want to evolve my music to is heavily influenced by a lot of the sounds/songs The Crystal Method produces...but I have quite a wide scope of genre's I see myself getting into along the journey.
JB