maschine = good sounds, not a great workflow
I had an mpc2500 for years then got rid of it, now I have a maschine, and even though the the maschine does the job, I now find myself wishing I still had my mpc, workflow was lightning fast boom boom boom, maschine it's like you have to go back n forth between the software and hardware sometimes, and if you want to use just the hardware I feel like there's too many button presses just to do certain things.
Maschine has a decent workflow but chopping takes longer, and arranging takes longer. Mpc is way quicker but you have to collect sounds for it.
Since they lowered the Maschine's price it might be worth fun factor for you, but I would say get the mpc ren or studio if you are looking for something like a sampler/groovebox
I'm not a big fan of software but you might find fruity loops or reason worth the fun factor, but I don't see fun in clicking around, dragging dropping and all that.
The fun factor for me was an mpc and just get your self some good samples/sounds
I never had a problem with the fantom x, then the fantom g for sounds but they got all kinds of keyboards available.
But addressing your original question... I got the maschine, took a few weeks to learn the ins and outs, then a couple months of making beats and I knew everything but the workflow still didnt match an mpc, I got bored about a month later and now I wish I had a 2500 with the JJOS again, or maybe the new mpc REN but still not sure cus its based on software also. I dont think any software is worth the fun factor unless your computer is f*ckin amazingly fast, I hate waiting that one second extra for something to load, maschines are quick but they are like that, might slow down for a sec, might take a second for a sound to load, all depends on the computer, I liked the mpc2500 because it loaded as fast I could turn the dial, unless of course I was loading big files but once they were loaded everything was quicker then the maschine was. I also use a new macbook pro with 4gb ram and very fast i7 processor but still I wasnt satisfied with the maschines workflow and I only make hip hop beats, I can imagine if your trying to make a detailed composition with a lot of change ups maschine would probably give you a headache, oh and you can only have 8 groups which are like tracks, theres ways around it using the sounds but thats more waste of time.
You cant go wrong with a fantom or an mpc, then again some like fruity loops and reason, it all depends on you, your ear, and your creativity but this is my opinion