Midi is essential for all those reasons of control that you mentioned...you just have to live with the instrument sound short-comings. I also do as you have—see if another midi instrument can be used that avoids the “trying to sound real” problems. I’ve tried to solve that also by doubling, sometimes tripling the sounds on that channel, trying to get to a unique sound palette to keep the listener from focusing on the not-quite-real midi sound of the base instrument. And there’s also that jazz chord thing, sometimes you just need to enter it yourself to get the extensions you want. Interesting exercise here working with all those issues and getting a pretty good result.

Windows 11, Intel Core i5-8600T 2.3Ghz, 16 gig ram, BIAB 2025 MegaPak, SampleTank 4, Keystation49 Kybd, Neewer NW-800 mic