I miss this, an actual intelligent person.
While you're right the newer HD models are reeeeally nice, it'l never match up to how easy it was working with the bigbottom. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to just get a dinky ux1, because I could relate it to my old 6505, 95% of the time, no matter where the knobs are even at, the tone will sound amazing. With the HD Pro it takes some work, and then you finally get something you're comfortable with, then realize you're gonna be using it on the computer which means turning cab simulation back on, switching the whole thing to studio mode instead of power amp mode, just to find out it sounds like bees in a cup pressed against my ear.
And you were right on the trails, that was my mistake. After growing so attached to the DL4, I got in my brain "yeah, line 6 knows how to handle effects, obviously" but switching patches is just awkward.