I don't like the percussion strip. I EQ each drum to sound the way I like and send them to a bus. I add a pultec type EQ to the bus and make it sound the way I want. I then use and LA-2A type compressor to even it up slightly. After all the parts of the entire song are mixed together I use the PC EQ as a subtractive to make everything blend.
 
Quick, down and dirty is just an illusion. It's worth the time to make it sound the best you can.

imho, the percussion strip is no more geared towards hip-hop and dance than any other plugin.  Perhaps, as someone mentioned, the presets give the wrong impression.  To answer your original question, might be to re-examine the percussion strip to see what about it is not working.  You obviously want something like it.  What exactly,aside from the presets turns you off to simply learning the percussion strip better?  If it is the sound, warmness or other things hard to place in technical terns, have you considered simply creating an fx chain in the pro-channel that contains that becomes a custom percussion strip.  Try a chain with the channel EQ, transient shaper, compression and tube saturation.

dub, I am using it for primarily jazz kit and brush kit audio for jazz tunes. Also some adaptive funk and pop tunes. Apart from a couple of "snare" oriented presets which don't work all that well, and one called Gentle Kit, the rest add lots of weird delays and EQ's that are more suited to dance-floor music rather than jazz pop funk - there are a couple that would suit heavier rock, but that's not what I do.

joden, one of the nice things about the percussion strip is that you can turn off elements you don't need like the delay.  Based on your usage, and the fact that it sounds like you lean towards presets, I think some of the pro channel presets would be much more useful to you.  Have you checked out the additional ones in the pro channel preset zone?  http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Preset-Zone.aspx/ProChannel-Expanded-Presets
 
Many of those are channel strip type configurations and since they are all separate modules, they may be easier to fine tune for you.

Hey thanks for the link - I never knew that page existed! Yeah that may be a better way to go so good advice  I will look into it further and try some.

Pro Channel side strip is a bit inflexible isn't it. I mean in terms of ordering components. And also if you only want one component (for aesthetic reasons to remove "clutter") you are forced to run it right at the bottom and you cannot move it from there. Further, it seems the EQ panel is "hard-wired" to be visible at all times, no delete option!
 
Still it does seem it may be useful. I have never used it preferring the "old fashioned" way of using the insert FX boxes on a per track/bus basis

bitflipper
I don't ever use presets for anything other than synthesizers.

But but but but but
 
I thought presets are never to be used as is and that they are just a starting point?
 
Oh I get it.... if you find a preset that "works" for you there is no need to tweak it, right?

You should be able to rearrange (drag and drop) the signal path on the PC. Also you can add or remove the PC based modules.
 
Regards,

Thanks Mike...seems I cannot.
 
For example I delete all the modules (except the EQ which has the delete "greyed out") then insert one module only, and instead of it being at the top of the PC panel it gets locked to the bottom with all this clear space above it.

You can rearrange them anyway you want. Just grab the top most portion of each PC channel module.