Ableton's not just about flat/cool/design. It's about providing proper UI controls. Why waste half your screen with gigantic knobs that make input a pain? Instead, a label and a value is all you need. Why have a long selector switch if a dropdown suffices? If you want hardware, then buy a hardware controller with little displays so you can get all hands-on.

When setting up really complex sounds and devices, I can't imagine any other approach. How do you represent a device that contains, say, 10 sub-devices? Ableton makes it super clear to setup and inspect.

Unfortunately, it seems like few other companies agree with this approach and spend lots of effort drawing backgrounds and rendering knobs and switches.

I think it's a hold over from the days when to experiment with sounds, you actually did have to go plugging various cables in and playing with knobs.

I think "much better DAW" is sort of glossing over the differences between the two. I wouldn't want to stare at Ableton all day when composing (but I have) because their interface is kind of a mess; I don't really dig the clip metaphor for that. On the other hand, the clip metaphor is great for screwing around, seeing what meshes well, and (obviously) playing live.

Both are very good at only somewhat related tasks. But fanboyism always sucks.