@ddw_music "A concrete benefit is: If I write some compositional algorithm and I want to decide later whether to play it within SC or using an external instrument, I don't have to change the composition logic at all. That part simply stuffs data into Event objects, and the event determines what finally happens."

That is exactly the purpose for which I built [slist-master]
Because it was built for lists the data "get" has to look for the place in the list so with a single value for the key........ key/value dog 12 is looked up by [value dog1]
It can be modded easily to avoid that if only single values are ever to be assigned..... see below.
I have changed the setting of data to use the more conventional "set" in place of "add".

When the data set is loaded (by set or loading a file) all [value] objects are loaded with their data, so retrieval should be fast.
Even a dynamically created [value] will already store the data for the key.
cat_n_dog.zip

And here for just key/value (lists truncated)...... key-value.zip so the receive objects are simply [value key]
Of course [value] is already [receive] with a store........ so be careful with key names...
And values can be overwritten but not cleared... that's in the nature of the [value] object....
David.

PS It is possible to access much of Pd media settings and change them from within a patch.
Some work was done recently to cope with reordering midi connections when their order has changed in the os. That could be applied to audio devices as well...... https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/13217/save-and-recall-midi-settings-in-a-project/2
I didn't follow up to see how complete the project was.....
A little more complex than some other programs of course.