Midi controller (keyless) to work with Sonar

The situation with controllers and SONAR is the following:
 
There are controllers with native SONAR support (always mentioned explicitly, they have dedicated SONAR plug-in coming with them):
* Roland keyboards (with keys...) and combined solution (deprecated) VS-700.
* Nektar Impakt (but not Panorama, there was several threads about that), also with keys
* Novation products with Automap. Some people like them (and Automap), other hate the hardware part, Automap or both... There are keyless controllers and they can be used for mixing and VSTs.
* Mackie (MCU,XT,C4) and "Mackie compatible". Can be used for mixing (strips control) and for effects. MCU does not support ACT, so you can not control Synth with it. Compatible devices can bit tricky to configure (since they are not 100% compatible).
 
ALL other controllers are effectively equal from SONAR point of view. They are configured in ACT MIDI and/or Generic Surface (standard SONAR) plug-ins. See chapter 40 of SONAR Reference Guide. ACT MIDI support 8 sliders, 8 encoders and 9 buttons. More controls can be used when combined with Generic Surface plug-in, but there are caveats. In general, these plug-ins do not support any kind of feedback (no motorized faders, no rings on endless encoders, no LEDs for buttons, no displays).
 
As you can see, in case you want control Synth in SONAR, the choice is limited. You either dive into "paradise"/"nightmare" of Automap or use "simple" controllers without feedback.
 
Well, there is one more option: you either can write your own plug-in for you controller of choice (CW API is open source) or hope someone else writes it for you (up to now there are 2 projects: one for MCU compatible devices and one universal).