The bar indicators in sliders are good for showing the magnitude (size) of a value, but less useful for showing relative positions (like pan position, for example). Could the bar be replaced by just a dot at the value itself?
Curiously, one of Venus Theory's YouTube videos seems to show a version of Decent Sampler where this is already (kind of) implemented in Fred Poirier's 'Shivering Waves'...:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os6fg2t8uK4 at $:17
But it shows a dot AND a bar, not just the dot...