Another idea:
Signal and control wires could be of different colours, the same for the inlets and outlets.
That way you know visually where to connect your wires without having to open the object if you don't remember.
And seeing a patch with bicolours wires should help a lot when you have a great numbers of them, or simply to understand better patch from other people.
For instance blue marine for the signal path and black for control.
Linium