I mentioned this before but its still getting updates (been released 2 years ago I think). Its very affordable for what it does.
It does what I prefer by using pedals, the od and dist. pedal acts like stages of an amp. These are digitally controlled analog by the way and from there the modulation fx is digital but parallel. Finally ends with an ir loader, not Helix quality (they have a separate ir pedal for that which has poweramp sim too) but still good. Its a very popular product where I live.
So if you bypass the ir loader you get a pedalboard which can be connected 4 cable method, potentially can serve someone a very long time.