I am a Senior Software Developer at Adobe Inc.
I was Research Director of UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT)
I don't use the stock "official" Arduino boards for my work. The $18 teensy 2.0 is smaller than any of the stock Arduinos, has more A/D pins than any of them except the Mega, has more memory, more PWM pins, full speed USB serial support and has a more accurate crystal cock instead of a resonator. You can buy them from the designer ($18$16) or from Lady Ada ($20). Sketch loading and restart is much faster because of the high speed USB port.
The FTDI drivers aren't necessary with the Teensy and you can add the Teensyduino overlay to run your Arduino sketches.