Perhaps, jnet, because the way you pose your issues and questions lead people to believe that you really aren't a good sysadmin (I agree that scsi isn't always quite the diplomat), and most of us are really trying to protect you from yourself.
I stand behind my post to which you linked, but I'll add here that I have a friend who uses DirectAdmin, Webmin, and Midnight Commander on his server, whichever is appropriate, and wherever appropriate. He's not a very experienced systems administrator, but he manages, using the points in my post as a guide, to stay out of trouble.
The big issue is, as you've noticed, that when you get into trouble because you've used multiple control software on the same server, no one is going to be too sympathetic.
There are control panels out there that don't require (and sometimes don't even recommend) that you ever do anything as root; Plesk comes to mind. But inevitably they're not as extensible as DirectAdmin. Nor as inexpensive.
DirectAdmin really isn't for everyone. Hopefully it's for you.
Jeff