I agree, it would be great to revisit this idea. But if I were to re-do those screenshots, I would leave out the eye-candy; the transitions, and differently-laid-out “zoom levels” (although zooming all the way out to see the arranger state might still have some merit).
Like you’re saying, the various pattern lines could simply be filtered out, nothing more. The result would actually be akin to how a piano can instantly tell you where various pitches are located, only with beats instead.
For a common, accessible workflow, how about if the zoom level adapted to the current edit-step size and was made optional?