About the wire-sniffer thing,
padawan's presumably 'simultaneous invention's both have previous incarnations: jsarlo's "magicglass" patch, and matju's [display] object.
I would like very much even an integrated scope and spectrum
and these exist, as scope~ in cyclone, and various toxy/gridflow widgets
i am thinking some kind of generalized action to draw backwards, from an inlet to outlets, and merely hovering over the outlet is enough to make a temporary connection, eg, place a scope~ or display or GOP-objectinspector in the corner of the patch and inspect everything by hovering over their outlet with the temp cable..