I got both controllers and I like them both for differen reasons. Portability being the only one to go with the LE.
I believe they dropped Spark all together because they thought it was competing against their own products in the drumbrute line. I m ok with spark how it is now. But as soon as the first OS uncompatibilities will start showing up, i will certainly be pissed off big time. That will be the time to write a script to integrate the controllers into bitwig studio = problem solved.
SparkLE was an error in my opinion, I'm assuming they wanted to make a more portable machine, which is fine. But, rather than making specific software for the product (As they had with CDM) they enveloped SparkLE into the Spark software, which in order to span the gap between the two pieces of hardware, made the CDM experience 'less' and the SparkLE experience 'Not quite'
Then the software was expanded on with controls not available via the hardware meaning you had all kinds of extra button presses to get back to where you were. Essentially, the software took on a life of it's own without considering it's hardware unit that was meant to be it's controller.
That said, I think the last updates is a great compromise and very usable in it's own right. Bugs have been addressed and I do hope that support carries on for what is, a great little product.
Thanks, Stuart