Yeah, I don’t worry too much about the ‘DAW in a box’ issue. A DAW in a box actually sounds great to me, if it can do it in a well thought out package that doesn’t overcomplicate things, and I think the MPCs make a decent job of that. You could remove the touchscreen and relegate its functions to knobs and buttons, but to what end? Identify the features that make it a ‘DAW in a box’ and get rid of those, and what have you achieved, other than making it less functional?
Going DAW-free is only worthwhile if it improves your enjoyment of making music. If you start to get puritanical about it - as with anything - I think it’s going to have a negative effect. The key is to be able to identify when that’s happening, work out why, and fix it. If the fix involves bringing a DAW into the equation, or redefining what ‘dawless’ means to you, well, they both sound preferable to being frustrated or losing interest.
I did ponder for a good while about the MPC One, because I wasn’t sold on the Live when it appeared and I did wonder if the touchscreen was over-egging the pudding. I had absolutely no interest in the earlier hybrid MPCs, and wondered if this was just a poorly thought-out extension of those. But with the One I gradually came round to seeing the advantages and potential of its various features, and gave it a try, and it worked out. I could do a whole lot more with a laptop, controller and DAW, but experience suggests I’d actually do less. So I’ll worry about it when I stop enjoying it.