Now, I don't want Ion fanboys to tell me I'm "doing it wrong". I've had that machine for a long time, I full understand the capabilities, but frankly, it takes so much patience to write a good patch, and even when I'm satisfied with what I've made, I'm just never really happy with my end result.
OK, first off, I'm not knocking your ability so I'm sorry if I gave that impression - this is a psychological thing rather than an ability thing. I know because this exact thing has also happened to me. It's not that you can't make sounds, it's that you can't make sounds that you are happy with - something that will not change if you get a different but similar synth. The factor here is not necessarily that you are playing to the character of the Ion, but that you yourself have painted yourself into a corner on the Ion, and you will take that limitation with you when you get another synth - you'll find a sweet spot that works and be equally limited after your initial joy at finding something different. You'll just use the ion for one set of sounds, and the new synth for another set of sounds, and then you'll need another new synth for this set of sounds, and so on and so forth.
It's also worth pointing out that you're looking for the Holy Grail -any synth with the complexity and depth of an Ion is not going to be as quick or easy to program as a Brute; the Ion doesn't actually have a bad interface for it's depth. The Prophet 6 and Juno 106 are really quick to program, but lack any of the serious programming depth of the Ion and Supernova and Prophet 12. If you want to really get slow at programming, try learning to use an Analog 4 or a Blofeld. I wanted an A4 until I actually sat down and tried to learn my friend's - after an hour, I was frustrated by it; after a week, I hated it. If you're serious about wanting an A4, I'd wholeheartedly recommend trying one out first - you will either love the workflow, or you will hate, hate, hate it. The Blofeld is as deep as the Ion, and deeper, but crammed into half a dozen knobs and pages and pages of menus.
Anyway, the point I'm making is that the Ion has an enormous palette of sounds available to it; yes, it has character, but the only person stopping you from stepping outside that safe zone and experimenting with different kinds of sounds is you. I've been there too, I am not trying to diss you as a musician or an artist - this is a psychological thing, not a matter of talent or ability. It's easy to play safe with a piece of gear you know intimately, and it's easy to keep dialling in the same kind of bass sound, the same kind of pads, the same kind of kick, because you know that works well. But from hard experience, when you then buy another synth, to 'broaden your palette', another synth that's kinda similar but with maybe more knobs, or different features, you do exactly the same thing - you find its sweet spot and play safe in that.
I forced myself to start using my gear utterly inappropriately for what I'd originally bought them for in order to break myself of the habit - I got the Z1 for heavily modulating pads and weird FM and Physical modelling stuff - so I started using it to program bass. I got the Microbrute for industrial aggressive sounds and textures - so I'd start making delicate seventies style leads and effects with it. I got the MS2000 for gnarly digital basses and leads - so I started programming soft, floaty pads into it. In my head was the constant "but the Z1 bass will never be as good as the Tetra or the Volca Bass" drone of the psychological thing that had locked me in in teh first place, but I persevered, and ended up making a whole new set of tones and sounds that I actually ended up really loving once in the context of tracks. They were outside my usual comfort zone, and so it stirred up my creativity a lot.
You have gotten into a comfort zone with the Ion, and you are the one who can change that - spending more money on more gear is a great thing for us gear geeks, but it doesn't necessarily help us when we get psychologically locked into a certain pattern of working!