DAW History
ACID Pro 4
Propellerhead Reason 2-4
Magix Samplitude trialled
Steinberg Cubase 2-3
Cakewalk 8-current version
Each program handled mixing a lot different. For instance, in Samplitude it came with Aux busses and POW-R dithering as standard and a dedicated mixing utility which resembled a hardware mixer with flexible routing.
Cubase as I recall had a 6 effects and 2 assignable effects per track.
Reason for me was great for easy routing however at the time, the mix arranger was had harder to organise once added all your effects and synths.
So now I'm settled on Sonar which is working out better now that I'm using the skylake interface more effectively and colour coding track types. I don't go as far as changing the icons however so I suppose I could. Every project is different from me, it could be an orchestral mock-up to a edm tune.