In the DAW space, Reaper's success would suggest that the gulf is nowhere nearly as wide as you suggest. This is a supremely "nerdy" DAW, and yet has found great rates of adoption and publicity (partly thanks to its enormously energetic user community).
One of things that is easy to forget if you're not in this world all day every day is that audio engineering was already a pretty nerdy activity before DAWs came along, so the move to computer-based workflows doesn't really change the fundamental psychological qualities of a lot of the process.
One of things that is easy to forget if you're not in this world all day every day is that audio engineering was already a pretty nerdy activity before DAWs came along, so the move to computer-based workflows doesn't really change the fundamental psychological qualities of a lot of the process.