Max/MSP (or Pure Data) ended up being a good middle ground for me. With that said, it's easy to get lost in the coding and forget to make music, if that is the ultimate goal. I also found that more complex patches trend towards approximating features of a DAW, at which point the downsides (single-core, no timeline) make the whole undertaking a bit questionable.

I spent about a month developing a custom UI and comprehensive control environment for my modular only to immediately abandon it and return to Ableton.

Max for Live, on the other hand...