I will explain how I use controllers because we are in the right topic, it is my passion and I like to share it 
Firstly, I totally agree with @jrm : the EV-30 is very reassuring because it is reliable and robust, the double output and the additional settings make it a āuniversalā pedal for use particularly with hardware.
And above all, as you say, it is very pleasant under the foot, nothing to do with the EV-5 which only has the flexibility of plastic 
But I can not have everything: as I want to travel light (I sometimes have to take the train, the bus) I chose lightness at the expense of comfort.
As I only use the controllers in a plug-in host (see above), I donāt miss hardware connections and functions since each of my controllers can have the same possibilities and all the configurations can be saved and reloaded automatically.
I reshape the curve according to the desired rendering, as in these examples:
Another example of use that deals with the range of the pedal: I use a EV-5 in a song to control the speeds + on/off of a rotary fx.
I set the pedal range curve so that the pedal at heel triggers the slow speed of the rotary, at toe for the fast speed and anywhere in between to stop the rotary.
I also use a āstaircaseā curve to recall specific synth presets depending on the values set by the pitch of each step
One EV-5 can also trig as many devices as I want by assigning it to a group of different devices parameters, i.e. flanger depht + guitar amp drive + delay time + etc (a very very weird effect used in a narrative talking about descent into hell 
)
The possibilities of the controllers are ultimately limited by the lack of imagination I may have 