I was squarely in the "It's been done before" camp.  But now I'm thinking that Eventide has all of the tools to come up with a variation that's unique, musical and useful.  So, let's see what's in store.

Forced feedback is a good thought.  Or morphing between flavors of distortion.  Multiband distortion and/or octaving + pitch effects also come to mind.  I agree that Eventide should focus on separation from the rest of the pack.  How about some modulation or sequencing influence over select distortion parameters?