This looks interesting(think Line 6 ToneCore):
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marser/owl-programmable-effects-pedal
Anyone who has ever written an audio plugin should find their JUCE
based 'c++ development framework' pretty simple to use. Of course it
doesn't look as impressive as MOD*, but it will certainly be cheaper
and looks a lot more robust.

*http://portalmod.com/en/index.html