I completely agree on the control issue, I don't like the laptop in that aspect either.. but if you get the control down well you'd only need the screen as a reference to see what is playing currently.

It's completely up to you really.. I think with a properly mapped faderbank as well as something like a trigger finger, you could do some nice things.

Check this video out (it's not really techno but you could totally do similar things in techno):

Video