Seems like your looking for a whole sandwich, rather than a bread and butter sampler!
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Hehe, I think I may want the whole sandwich and also to have my cake and eat it too!
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Nothing wrong with that!
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In that case, I think what you should be looking for is a very capable sampler with progressive disclosure of complexity. That is, something that is immediately intuitive to do simple stuff like record, slice, assign to pad, and play pads, but still has the muscle to do whatever else you want when you need it and are willing to dive in. Something that makes easy things easy and hard things possible.
The 404 is actually really, really good at this. Recording couldn’t be easier. Slicing is great. Assigning and playing are dead simple. When you need to dive deeper into sequencing, the realtime record is straight forward. When you need more, learning how to get into TR-REC makes edits reasonably easy. When something is awkward and you look for the better way to do it, it doesn’t seem like a big burden to learn the shortcut for just that one thing you need when you need it. The key is not to try to take it all in all at once.
The MPC is also a great choice for this type of exploration. But you already have the 404, so it’s essentially free to learn, yeah?
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Yeah, you are right, I am probably being a bit lazy here. I haven’t delved in TR-REC mode yet: I just wish it was more baked into the surface of the device rather than added in after they released it. If they could kind of smoosh something like the P6 sequencer into an SP808 mk ii with fewer key combos than the 404 mk ii that would be nice.
For me a simple interface is one with pads
I think one of the simplest I’ve used is the pioneer sp16
Joy to jam on and sounds great
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Jemmons makes a great suggestion about having the bread and butter functions to hand with complexity there if you need it. But the Juno is simple to use because it’s a simple synth. Even the Alpha Juno is simple to use without all those sliders.
I hear a lot of love for the 404. For what it’s worth I’ve owned a Casio FZ1 , Ensoniq ASR-X, Alexis Fusion, Akai MPC One and Digitakt.
One thing that is essential (and usually present in modern samplers) is some sort of waveform display.
The Digitakt is tops for ease of use. The ability to modulate things like sample start time and loop points make it creative. In my experience, the best choice if you are into creatively sequencing samples and like a xox interface. It does stuff with ease that I wish other samplers can do.
On the other hand the MPC does auto sampling of other synths and has better effects. No xox style sequencing, really aimed at finger drummers.
I guess most people buy key mapped multi-sample sets rather than make their own, so be honest with yourself, what features really matters? People will be able to make suggestions based on that.
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Another one worth looking into that won’t break the bank would be the Novation Circuit Rhythm. While it is limited in some ways compared to the often mentioned 404 here (mono sampling, no polyphony), it remedies your concerns about the having things at surface level, and not having to dive too deep. The sequencer is one of the most intuitive and easy, and has some tricks like probability and mutate. Sampling is quick and easy, it includes some creative FX, and is very portable. It is also one of the most “Juno” like, in that it does not have a screen and it keeps controls limited, but will not get in the way of finishing a track.
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Yes, good for the purpose I would say.
It’s not an iPad and it doesn’t want to be 
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As like many other users … I am on firmware 2.15.1
Speaking of 3.0 - I watched this video by Loopop:
and in my opinion many UI workflow improvements seem to be on the horizon with 3.0, which would speed up my personal workflow.
IMO it seems, it’s not killing simplicity of use.
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One I hadn’t thought about, thanks!
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I’m currently messing around with a 404 mk2 while my Digitakt is out for repairs. I don’t think that I would way the 404 is especially easy to use, especially compared to the Digitakt.
I think that far and away the easiest to use sampler that I’ve ever owned is the Zoom Sampletrak. I wouldn’t say it has everything you need though. For example, there’s a sequencer but there’s not a way to chain patterns together other than trigger them by hand and hope you get the timing right. But I guess you can work around it. And I’ve had an easier time making beats with it than the new 404.
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Imho that’s been true for most of the lifecycle of the current-gen MPCs, but personally I feel like the 3.0 firmware messes with the basics in the interests of supporting the bells and whistles. I’d been using my MPC1k and MPC Live in pretty much the same way for about a decade, but for better or worse 3.0 changes a lot about the fundamentals. Still a bit of road to travel before it gets out of beta though.
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Mpc 2000
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I would say by far the KO2 Ep133! It’s the easiest and fastest sampler. It’s all you want and a little bit more
Unless you want to put your sample in reverse
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TBH I found a couple of improvements, which I expect speeding up my workflow. In the past I had a lot switching between screens.
I will miss the separation between track and program, though. But the “workaround” is equal to what I do in DAWs already.
The “arranger” mode is great. I was missing such thing ever since.
There are new features for live performance, which make it even more an instrument than before.