I was an ModEdit -> Scream Tracker 3 -> Impulse Tracker user myself, and that feeling of productivity that sample-based trackers create was astonishing. I almost always considered what I was doing was "sketching" out songs that I might somebody revisit to remaster or clean up with better instruments etc. (I never really did of course).
I found I could crank a song out I was happy with in just a few hours, but it took a long time to pull together a sample library that I was happy with and well organized, and learn enough techniques to make what I wanted. But yeah, there was a period of a few years where tons of music I still listen to today literally came together in a couple of hours.
I started slowing down as I tried to go for much more polish in my productions, writing out by hand effects that are done nowadays with VSTs (pitch stretches, digital multi-tap stuff, and lots of trying to make acoustic instruments sound like they were actually being played with volume and sample offsets).
Then technology and life changed, IT sort of stopped working and I didn't like my other options for a while. Finally forced myself to get into the FastTracker sort of workflow years later with MadTracker2 and now Renoise. It's not something I really have time to dedicate to anymore, but I keep almost getting setup to do it. There's a mental block for me with VST/VSTis that I can't quite get through. Sure they sound "better" but they lack lots of the expressiveness and flexibility working in all samples used to offer.