I have not used a pedalboard in years. Now I have a bunch of the Helix stuff, a Quad Cortex and also the Pleathora X5. They are all similar once I got used to them. Since I rarely use the modeled amps I have plenty of computing power to run as many FX as I need. Setting up pedal order is easy, with the QC being the easiest....take my finger, put it on the effect and move it to where I want it. The line 6 stuff is simple too but doesent have a touch screen. It is way easy. It's like having a bunch of different pedal boards and I can just call them up as needed. The paralysis for me is deciding which of the many reverbs or boosts, DDLs, Choruses. etc. I want to use, But once I found my favorites, it was easy to save them and pull them up whenever I need. Most of these devices also have a favorites place to store my fovorites effects and my favorite settings so I don't have to tweak whatever I pull up. Of course there are FX I will probably never use but they are there in case someone asks me for a strange ass sound for a song.
All of my units have an FX loop or two so that if I want to incorporate some outboard pedal or two it is easy. I can even switch them on and off through the unit.
Since I still use tube amps, even the digital boost pedals sound great.
I use the Helix rack for most of my gigs. If it were to go out, I carry either the X5 or Quad Cortex as a back up and they take up very little room in my bag.
The learning curve was steep a few years ago but I got the hang of it now. It was well worth the work.
Thanks God for youtube, though, as anything I have been confused on , there was a video to unconfuse me.