I'm kind of a control freak myself so I've tried a lot of module for that purpose. I really like joysticks. The intellijel planar is great especially because of the built in motion recorder. The doepfer is also pretty nice. A bit more coordinates that are covered but unfortunately without the recording. And with a huge knob. Not really suitable for a portable case. The one from Flame wasn't really my cup of tea but I heard good things from other people.

Tetrapad+Tete are great too. They are not as hands on as the joysticks, but if you take your time with them you get a lot of functionality of of them.

As dedicated mutes I use the Addac 305 and the lpzw schleußig. They're both great. The 305 has 4 buttons who control the 4 inputs. And 4 additional buttons for a fixed +5v gate signal. On the schleußig on the other hand, you can mute in sync to a clock. Lpzw has a new module afaik, as an addition to the vpme euclidean circles. It has basically the same functionality as the vpme six switches but with the added sync function. I'm still waiting for my order, but I'm pretty sure it will be great.

One module that should be mentioned but isn't necessary a control module is the Acid rain technology - Maestro. It's an 6 channel lfo, but it is well designed and I have my hands on it all the time.