Where it gets interesting is the complexity of tasks - the "Super Mario vs. flight sim" aspect. FruityLoops' initial design goal of a virtual drum machine allowed for simplification of UX to an exemplary degree. However, as FL Studio was expanded into more of a general DAW, UX became more of a challenge. The app now attracted more user types, some of which had different needs within context of using a DAW.
That brings to mind the aspect of UX which many designers are (seemingly) yet to learn: that there is no one-size-fits-all UX solution. It's possible to cover the lowest common denominator, but there'll be segments - sometimes large ones - which won't be well served by that.
Even in simplest things that can be seen. An example from videogames is playing NES while using index and middle fingers for B and A buttons, instead of thumb. That allows for dedicated control of actions, for more relaxed play and/or better success in speedruns and so on.
SNES pad made that kind of control harder, and by the times of N64 and 3D games, actions being hard-coded to buttons made some games more of a pain than they should have been. The games and 3D worlds were now so complex that designers could not predict all the play styles and approaches to problem solving, including the role of UX in that. The official solution should have been per-game input reassignment profiles saved on the N64 Controller Pak, but instead there was/is hacking and third-party controllers with alternate layouts.
...and from that, back to the DAWs of 2020s and UX.
Nowadays, the key to getting work done efficiently is integrating hardware and software tools as "cybernetic extensions" of oneself. Poetic as it may sound, it's a blunt truth which goes double if the tasks are (in videogame terms) of sim-level complexity, requiring custom UX solutions and scripting.
Which is where REAPER, for all its UX curiosities (to put it mildly) succeeds quite well. Its devs understanding that UX needs are varied resulted in the app being pliable for many kinds of use cases. In other words, compared to "locked UX" DAWs such as Ableton Live and to some extent FL Studio (as they currently are), REAPER allows users to be their own UX designers, at least to a meaningful-enough extent.
Of course, the other side of that coin is that customizing REAPER experience for specific persons and/or tasks is in many cases a prerequisite. Which is why it tends to be favored by users experienced enough to know exactly what they need from their DAW. In some sense, "locked UX" apps with limited functionalities are "feeder paths" in driving users towards customizable/extendable environments.
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All that brings to mind a quick checklist of choosing tools:
- Can user do the required tasks without having to fight the tool?
- ...if not, can the tool be customized until that's possible?
