That’s true, I wasn’t advocating for putting a combined plugin on everything for any other reason but workflow, the memory concern and effect additions are a really good point! That said, AFAIK SPAN shouldn’t cause any effects and being an analyzer plugin you can always disable instances you don’t need. MSED is a bit different, so no comment there. I use MSED and SPAN on pre-master channel buses so I can monitor groups of instruments and I really need all of the measurements in there to make some judgements and adding 5+ plugins to emulate their combined function will only add more surface for potential effect additions and clutter my screen. That’s where I was coming from. Maybe I’m wrong about it, let me know

I’d argue the speed reduction to your workflow from having to manage multiple overlapping windows is a significant drawback and there is nothing that stops free software from embedding other projects as a dependency with some user discretion. Unless you don’t have to manage the windows because of how much screen space you have or because of how those plugins work around that, I’d say having all essential stuff in one place (window) is better. I worked in FL for a long time and I’m not sure if it gets better in other DAWs. Trying out new stuff soon though