Yes, of course wanking has it’s place 
I guess my context would be at a club or event where you are "competing" with DJs, who get to cherrypick the most exciting parts of all the best music!
Of the shows I can remember (of my style) some of the best were:
Orbital
Speedy J
Zombie Nation (from the MP3s I’ve heard)
Daft Punk (barely live set, better than their DJ skills)
Spacelings and Bassheads (never got popular I guess)
FSOL (if you call that live)
some of the worst "wanking" (not to say the artist is bad!)
Autechre (early 1994)
Acid Junkies (don’t care for their music either)
Plastikman at Mutek (I wanted to like it)
Prototype 909 (sometimes good tho)
Jeff Mills (really just 909 supplementing DJing)
Hardfloor at times
again, most of the artists listed I really enjoy official releases, just not live sets, just personal opinion.
Anyways, as it relates to the Octopus/Nemo, I don’t think anyone was suggesting just using it as a MIDI playback sequencer, but having a basic structure using page sets and clustering allows for freedom to tweak some synth knobs in addition to sequencer tracks
cheers
ripe