And if "ideally" Pd should be just a "musical instrument" that you only have to "tune and play", it's only to go with those musicians who ideally should understand the breadth and depth of Pd's potential, but in practice don't.
Thanks so much for saying this. Think of the kind of acquired skill one needs to expertly "tune and play," say, a violin, with mastery. The problem is how the phrase "just a musical instrument" is used -- if you can justify spending years learning scales so that you can play in tune and develop technical facility, learning how sound works so you can adjust the instrument, learning how music works so you can play it intelligently, learning how others before you came to master their instrument and how to develop critical opinions about their playing, etc., certainly you can justify the same kind of intense work for any "instrument" (electronic/acoustic/programmed/otherwise) if you care to become competent.
Matt
PS -- I expect my wife to wonder just what tons of emails about "hot inlet position" are doing in my inbox... =o)