Right. Yes, a controller is definitely more hands-on. I really try to keep my rig minimal - so on that note, bear with me on another daft suggestion. It’s from the euro forum so I’m not taking any credit for it.
Basically, what you’d do is to swap the roles of the CUE and the MAIN outs. Then you can rock XVOL as your send, CUE as your (static) track volume, and AMP/VOL as a lockable/fade-able gain stage. That way you can still use the scenes workflow but hopefully get the flex you need.