Why not ? It would be actually quite convenient to have an option to control some parameters with bitmaps. As bitmaps are either rub value or just black and white.
And you guys probably have dealt with "packed" textures. Where you pack, say, meatless, ambient occlusion and roughness map into one texture. Each channel get's a greyscale map - and you'll just split it later on in material creation software (UE4, hyper shade, etc) - This way you can cut the amount of textures needed for the render. Especially if we're talking 8k
But for that to work we definitely need a node based system. Which ould be super ace to get. Essentially, I think this is the only thing that separates Maxwell render from big-ass production houses.
Sorry, for going a bit off topic, but .. I just did some test with Substance Painter and Maxwell render today .. might post my results in WIP forum - and I would definitely would love to hear your opinions on what could / should be improved .. as I mainly developed that workflow from scratch for myself - just did what is logical - and yup - ended up splitting everything per material: metal // paint // dust
Cheers,
Tim.
P.S. - NODES !! we need NODES