@Paul ,i see your lecture of 20 years of Open Source Audio Success and Failure,open source audio.
In the short time you bring up some point s I never taught off. I fit in the (dumb) user class. Would like to do more,only learning a new programming language at my age does not work. looked at plugins to make or adjust,from memory I think lv2, all hyperlinks , so looked and closed the tab.
The other problem i run in the most, is the mostly very aged documentation ,specially on the connection of audio “things” ,yes you can ask on a forum (like this good one) then you get mostly a reply, for what you sometime need to have a grade in rocket science. I run AVL without updates because I updated once and it stop working so I reinstalled all ,and it worked again. Other is kx studio that does work good to. My point is as a not geek its a high mountain to do something on your linux (audio). Like using two sound cards 
specially now the start with that pulseaudio brrrr.
For Ardour I only can say chapeau for a great piece of work, not easy,always struggling with things but it works.
Greetings from a happy user