It would nice to have everything inline with the same knobs similar to Reasons console (which emulates a SSL console). Having a compressor/gate and EQ on every channel is standard on most recording consoles. Some users may want to bypass them and use their own plugins so it might be nice to have disable buttons and provide insert points between the modules so plugins can be patched between them.
 

There's quite a difference, though. With Sonar you can create your own mixer architecture, not just show/hide modules. Reason doesn't accept VST plug-ins, so its Rack Extensions are pretty much equivalent to the ProChannel in the sense of being add-ons to the core program.
 
You can patch FX chains into the Pro Channel anywhere in the PC signal path, as well as run the PC pre- or post-FX bin. There's a huge amount of flexibility, and you can even save the whole thing as a track template so you can have a collection of different mixers.
 
Every Sonar channel does have a compressor and EQ, and there's an optional Gate module but you can also wrap the Sonitus gate in an FX chain and insert that. So I think it's possible to do pretty much what you want to do, as well as retain the aforementioned flexibility.
 
Of couse none of this is a diss of Reason, which is not only a very cool program but you can rewire all its instruments into Sonar  However it does have a different design philosophy which translates into a very different software design.

I don't want a hardware console in my DAW. I want a DAW in my hardware console!

I'm happy with FX Chains.

It seems I did a pretty bad job explaining the idea. Let's try again.
This wouldn't change any aspect of the pro-channel except for a context menu addition on modules that support this functionality.
In addition to the pro-channel UI, pro-channel modules would be able to supply a channel strip snap in widget that has their controls (knobs and switches) preferably using the same graphics style as the rest of the channel strip.
If a user wants to see the pro-channel module controls on the channel strip, the user right clicks the pro-channel module and selects 'Show Controls on Console'. Selecting this option would put the widget on the channel strip in the order that it appears in the effects chain (in the pro-channel group box).
That's it.

I think you'd find it problematic that if some channel strips had modules and some didn't, you wouldn't be able to just sweep your eye across the console to see the settings of, for example, the input gain control. You might have to scroll way down to see it one channel, up to see it on the next one, etc. Of course this wouldn't be an issue if you installed the plug-in on every channel strip, but then you'd have CPU issues.
 
When I want to see lots of channel info at once, I ctrl-click the ProChannel arrow in Console View to open them all up simultaneously (another reason I like Quick Grouping). It also looks cool   If you choose narrow strips, then the ProChannel essentially becomes your channel strip, and the "normal" strip is just the fader, panpot, mute/solo, etc.