Hi Paul,
The only experience I've had with Logic was wayyyy back in the day. In my university days, I took a course where the professor assigned us the task of creating a printed score for a Bach fugue, using Logic. This was the early 2000's, and all I remember was being frustrated that in a music technologies course that was supposed to survey various notation and sequencer programs, the prof only focussed on the one tool he used: Logic. I did the score in Finale and after getting a very good grade for the result, I faced his wrath when he learned I didn't produce it in Logic :) lol
But I digress. I use Cubase as it's the only sequencer I have learned. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. The learning curve is always steep, but for me, the motivation to improve my knowledge has been organic, in that the reward is making my own compositions sound as good as I'm capable. I would lack the motivation to learn any music software, if I was only assigned random pieces to mockup, as I was in school.
In any case, with Cubase, I don't make use of expression maps. I have found Beat Kaufmann's tutorials on structuring keyswitches/organizing matrices in V.I. Pro to be quite helpful, and have refined my template/workflow over the past few years. Nothing remains static: over time, you'll make modifications, discover new techniques to improve your output/efficiency, etc. The basic take away is: it's easy to write notes in a notation program and play them back with a modicum of decent sound quality (especially if you're integrating the VSL instruments into the playback); it's a much bigger, time consuming, learning process to take those scores in to a DAW and craft them in to life-like performances. Be patient, enjoy the process and the growth, and remain positive and steadfast in your commitment to improve. At least, that's what's worked for me.
Best wishes!
Dave