I second MCE. All day long. I wouldn't mess with smartrise either. They ain't the worst, but they can't touch an MCE ibox for reliability, in my experience.
First, I agree, you don't mod big 4 stuff to other big 4 stuff. The whole point of modding is to not have equipment by any of the big 4. That being said, I've been thrown a big contract of gen 2s a couple of years ago and at this point, other than the POS belt monitors, I like them. The blue tool is quick and easy. Beats the heck out of bringing in a whole laptop bag and setting it up.
You always mod to non proprietary. Around here I see alot of jobs put in by the big 4 or modded by them that the customer specd MCE so they put it in.