Yeah, we learned counterpoint from a modern translation of the J.J. Fux classic "Gradus ad Parnassum". Old as dirt...but they did get the rules right.
Actually, that "sustained pitch" aspect is yet another form of contrapuntal structure: pedal point. This goes back to the Renaissance, really...you just put down a single pitch (bass tends to work well) and work out over the top. Which, of course, gives me a real chuckle whenever I run into someone who thinks they've discovered some hot new drone technique. John Dunstable would tend to disagree about that "new" part...or he would, if he hadn't been dead for over five centuries. But that method definitely fits as well...after all, Bach's Prelude and Fugue in c# minor wouldn't have that eerie climax without the pedal point breakdowns toward the prelude's end.
One other interesting point about how Renaissance music interfaces with electronic music: a LOT of the post-WWII European composers (and a few pre-WWII ones, such as Webern) were all over music from that period. For example, Stockhausen's early works have the same sense of linear space as you'd find in early Renaissance vocal music, despite the different sonic palette. And then there's the whole issue of the St. Mark's School composers and their influence, several hundred years on, of how spatialization figures into a composition.