Anderton
I'm not into mapping tons of parameters to controls on a permanent basis, because I can never remember what maps to what. So I don't use ACT the way it's supposed to be used, but I believe how I use it - as basically a variable "scratchpad" for parameter control - is simple, effective, and very close to foolproof once it's set up.
I recommend those who are frustrated by ACT, or don't use it at all, to check out this blog post and see if the approach that's described works for you. As the intro says, "So if you’ve wanted to take advantage of ACT without having to reach for the aspirin, you’re in the right place."
Pay particular attention to Step 4. If you don't link the controller's controls to ACT, it will never work reliably. I think this may be at the core of a lot of peoples' problems with ACT.
FWIW - That's exactly how I would like to use ACT, but it is so unreliable that I can't. I mainly just use Automap for the task.
I'd like to be able to use NI's Kontrol wrapper because it has a very nice sound browser, but I can't Automap that one and ACT refuses to recognize any parameter changes on the contained synth.
Skipping Kontrol and just using the plugins directly is a mixed bag. Sometimes ACT can figure out that I am moving a control, other times it can't. For half an hour, I tried all the ways I could think of to remap "Glide Time" on Monark to rotary 1. It showed up as R6 by default, and I couldn't change it to save my life. I could change R1 to other controls, I could control Glide with R6, but couldn't reassign it.
This works perfectly with Automap and it also works perfectly in Studio One. (Honestly, S1's implementation of this whole area is an amazing bit of work. Very fast, accurate, intuitive, and makes the details visible enough to troubleshoot with but not so visible that they overwhelm the real work going on.) FWIW-Kontrol worked perfectly in S1 also.