FM3, the flawed but great sounding box

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This one gave me a smile: "The "preset edited" light is practically useless because any change will cause it to light up."

Well yes, the preset was edited.
We've had debates about certain actions that shouldn't cause that light to come over the years while beta testing. Because, as OP says, at some point it becomes the check-engine-soon light you just ignore because it's always on.
 
Well I just don’t feel there are other viable options. I see the point.

What’s a similar piece of gear with no flaws?

Every piece of gear has flaws. Just different ones. To me Helix and Quad Cortex are totally viable options with things I prefer over Fractal and other things I don't. Ultimately they all do the same things and there are multiple reasons to prefer one over another.

As an overall unit I think the Helix is kind of a sweet spot thing where it is feature packed, good sounding and easy to use. My biggest complaints are its large physical size and stock cab sims. It is in some ways more powerful than the FM3 like supporting stereo amps but underpowered in others. FM3 channels really makes up for a lot. I prefer Helix drive pedals because they are more like the real pedals to operate and have the same features which Fractal doesn't always offer, instead going for a "trawl the Wiki for knowledge and build your own from these blocks" approach. That makes the Helix a better pedalboard equivalent to me.

The QC is still not mature enough in its software but shows great promise. I very much enjoyed using it and the capture feature really nailed my tube amps. The amp section was hit and miss while the fx section was just lacking so here I am with a FM3, living with its drawbacks for the time being. Maybe in 1-2 years I might pick the QC instead but I didn't want to wait for that to happen. Plus I want to see what Fractal does in that time frame too!

I forgot to mention my usecases in OP and they are these:
  1. Providing fx and switching for my tube amps.
  2. Being a desktop unit for recording, practice with headphones etc.
  3. Being a compact unit for travel.
The Helix Floor is great for #1 but not #2 and #3 because it's so large while the smaller HX Effects and HX Stomp are a bit underpowered and throws away some of the UI benefits of the bigger Helix. FM3 I feel is great for #2 and decent for #3 but not for #1 because of its hardware UI and lack of switches. I'd like to replace the Helix with something smaller but I will have to wait for the right product to come to market first.

There's a lot of good gear out there and looking outside Fractal now and then is a good idea so you can see what the others do better and what things Fractal excels at. I didn't feel like writing much about the sound because so much has been said about it. Everyone regards Fractal as the top dog in amp modeling. I had no complaints in that area with the Axe-Fx 2 and have no complaints with the FM3's sound either, it's better than ever with Cygnus.
 
We've had debates about certain actions that shouldn't cause that light to come over the years while beta testing. Because, as OP says, at some point it becomes the check-engine-soon light you just ignore because it's always on.
That's pretty much how I've treated it, just completely ignored its existence. To me it doesn't make sense because you are looking at the screen rather than the LEDs so you are not going to spot unsaved changes from the Edited light. Axe-Edit does it much better because you can see the Save button change. Maybe having a little red dot pop up on the FM3 screen would serve this purpose better.
 
some excellent imporovement ideas from the OP there. I agree that the FM3 sounds excellent and at the moment better than the competition, I agree that the UI is not perfect, and coud be improved.
 
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