Agreed. It’s tricky, of course. What FC does, here, is a bit of a “cheat” with pitchbend in hosted plugins or with MPE support. Maybe MIDI 2.0 will eventually open more doors to such work with gliding pitches.
Of course you can live without it!
The real question is: can we innovate further on that concept?
(I tried it for a few minutes and decided against buying it, even at intro price. On the other hand, it does give me some ideas for Note Grid patches in Bitwig Studio. Plus, wishlist items for MTS-ESP modules.)
I am particularly intrigued since I don’t have any MPE-capable hardware controllers, but a couple of soft synths receptive to MPE control. So to that extent, it is an interesting option to have a plugin that leverages MPE. Also learned about Chord Bending, which I wasn’t aware of as a technique, althought I probably have heard its effect in music before.
Glad you’re intrigued in MPE. There’s a lot to be done with it, even without the controllers (although the controllers do make for a very satisfying experience). Depending on your DAW, you might be able to experiment with automation lanes.
Also, it’s useful to realize that there are software-based MPE controllers, especially for iPadOS. GeoShred is a neat example. While those typically don’t have “z-axis” depth (per-note aftertouch, which is actually different from PolyAT), they do make for some fun stuff with x-axis (per-note pitchbend) and y-axis (per-note CC74, often assigned to filter cutoff or some other expressiveness).