You may be happier with an HD500, for starters. It's not unlimited, but it's more flexible with how and how many effects and stomps can be programmed into a patch. Multiple effects combinations can be done more easily. Investigate that unit and see if it better fits your needs.

Far as the X3L, I'm not really sure what you want to do. 'On the fly' pertaining to what? While jamming just flipping through effects? Or the process of storing effects to buttons within patches? Just flipping through effects can be done with the foot, if you program user banks before hand to organize the whole thing. Start at user banks and load up each of the four patches in a bank with any stomp, mod, and delay you want. Do that for every user bank and load the patches up, organized the way you prefer. Custom name every patch too, to help organize it even more. Once you're done, it's just a matter of banking up/down with your foot to get to all your custom patches.

What I think you may be referring to though is how do you get more out of a bank. For instance, you go to a user bank and program a stomp, mod, delay, and that's it for patch A in that bank. BUT, in that patch though, you can also program tone 2 to have another three. So within patch A, you can easily get to another whole set of stomps, mods, and delays by just switching on tone 2. Between tone 1 & 2, you have just doubled your possibilities within one patch. Do the same for patch B, C, and D, and you'll have a LOT of choices within one bank. That's one of the benefits of not combining tones for live work- it doubles the possibilities in each patch. True, you are limited to what you can have going at the same time for a multiple effects setup because of the nature of the X3L- having to stick with stomp, mod, and delay. That's where the HD500 comes in- much more flexible to program. But with the X3L, it's all what you program to each patch in a bank. It's all about programming. There's a lot there under your toes for live work. You can also program tweak settings to the foot pedal and get some wild effects going. And of course, you have your comp/boost button to pop in that nice LA2A type compressor to use for solo boosts. Not sure how much more anyone needs for live work.

You can build up an arsenal of effects pedals and that's great too, provided you have a ton of cash to do it, and you're willing to have a massive floorboard on stage too. I work with a second guitar player in our band sometimes and he lugs in a huge floorboard chock full of nice effects that cost him a fortune. Nothing wrong with that- it sounds great. But at my feet is an X3L and guess what? I'm able to do just as much as he can with a fraction of the footprint on stage- at a fraction of the cost, and it sounds just as awesome, really. Honestly, how many effects does a guitarist need at any given time, in the real world on stage? As long as you program what you need in a way that will get you to all of it quickly in your sets, you're golden.

You can disable amps and cabs. Look at the manual or just work through the pod- it's not hard. I suggest you use gearbox. It makes programming SO much easier, and a whole lot more fun too. Good luck.

Dan