Quoting EJ SHELDON:  "When it comes to MIDI, they're not famous for crystal clear descriptions. Then, none of the amp sim vendors are. But that's a rant for another day....."

Hmm.. I'm wondering, We have a fairly decent sized community here.  Is there any chance a community letter to the companies that make these products would have an impact?  Something like:

• You make these products for people to USE.
• MIDI Pedals and other MIDI controllers make them much easier to use, especially in a performance or recording environment.
• Your products would be more popular and used more (read: PUBLICITY) if you'd make them easier to use with MIDI controllers while at the same time compliant to MIDI standards.
• Even documenting your MIDI interface better would help in this area.

Let's face it - Companies that make hardware MIDI devices - Amps, Amp emulators, Effect Pedals, etc. aren't our target here.  They want their product visible out front, not someone else's MIDI pedal or controller.  We could send them the letter anyway, with a slightly different bent to target them better.  But I think the end around approach would be better.  Target plugin and software emulator companies first.
They have no public face other than a computer or tablet screen.  The easier their soft instruments and/or effects are to use, assuming they're good in the first place, the more people will want to use them.  And when someone with some notoriety gets interviewed and asked, "What's an FCB1010, I've never heard of that pedal." They can say, "Oh, that just controls <virtual product(s) here>.  Xyz company made it easy to connect to my MIDI pedal and use their software effects live!".  We all win.

With MIDI 2.0 gaining popularity and slowly rolling out, I can imagine future controllers that just work.  Tap a knob, tap a control, and they're linked, and the setup saved in the controller as well as the software.  Without any prior setup or jumping though hoops!  More advanced pedalboards are not that far away (I Hope!), and the plugin/emulator companies are going to have to get with it sooner or later.  All we need is ONE popular plugin to go "pro-MIDI", and the others will have to follow suit or get left behind.

The FCB1010 community wouldn't be the only people to benefit from such changes, either. We could see if McMillen, IK Multimeda and other users want to chime in.  Am I just smoking the wrong pipe here?

Can you say "Tilting at windmills"?