Ronin, Jim, Farkas, thanks for the comments above.
Ronin, I hear you on "the modulation sources and utilities are the "sauce" that makes the sound great." And this response is part of why I'm asking this question -- to find out how much of a voicing section people are finding useful / inspiring.
Yet in fairness, I can't think of another way to get the sounds I'm getting from two "power oscillators" interacting (such as Mindphaser modulated at audio rate by Odessa) or complex OSC outputs switched at (varying) audio rate, all of which happens in the "voicing" type modules (like above).
SO, might we say "the sauce (that makes the sound great) is where you put it"? I'm reminded of some Zebra2 patches by Howard Scarr (the sound genius who did most of the sound design for the Dark Knight movies) -- one great patch in particular where the OSC section itself sounds like sh8t BUT it is basically a bland impulse going to an elaborate FX section, where those FX in effect become complex resonators (and the defacto sound generators as a result). In that patch, the FX are the "sauce" but are not acting remotely like traditional FX. Hence this notion that, depending on the setup and patch, the "sauce" could potentially be anywhere...
I AM interested in digging in more to what Ronin & Jim are saying above and where they get their "sauce," if not so much from the "voicing" modules, BUT I fear that would take this thread into diverging directions. So how about this: i) I'll follow up with Ronin, Jim, and anybody else who's interested in a later thread that looks at some of their favorite rigs and what are the core modules / techniques for those rigs and ii) this thread, we can keep jamming about what's awesome (or not awesome) in the voicing part of a rig and why.
Thanks for joining me on this geeky thread : )