FAUST definitely is worth checking out.
Its authors are concerned with "long-term preservation of music programs", which is a great idea ; FAUST allows you to do just that.
One can write audio dsp code, without cluttering the actual audio computation code with implementation/performance stuff like SSE, VST, ... that will be obsolete one day.
Another key point is that FAUST doesn't let you manipulate individual samples or time, but instead, focuses on the dataflow, which means you don't have to start all your programs by a time loop ; for example, a simple 2-input mixer is just "process = +;". It's a huge improvement over "for(t=0;t < n;t++) out[t] = in1[t] + in1[t];".
Also, you can selectively scramble the keycaps of your keyboard : way cheaper than getting a Das, but as efficient!