the daft version is clearly mixed (eq'd, compressed, etc.) and probably done so in a nice "easy" to use DAW. i doubt he could get that sound (without working long hours) when hardcoding everything.
i very much agree it's really sad that such a high quality language is held under the radar. Maybe poor marketing? The community is pretty good though.
It's life changing, lol. Really take a weekend or two to get acquainted with it. (Fight through the emacs tidbits or use evil-mode). You will not regret it.
i've been only using emacs for about three years. Don't get me wrong it's the great. I'll never truly let go of it as i use it everyday just for org-mode itself. But i always wonder how other text editors are doing, especially an up and coming one like atom.
I've been meaning to give atom a months worth of working with but am not sure if it's worth moving over to from emacs. I do like how simple its packaging system is. Any major complaints from users?