I’m not trying to defend the Kick on top metaphor. As I mentioned in my prior post, I totally agree with you that it’s also a pet peeve of mine.
I was merely trying to explain how this inconsistency might have come about historically, and why it may not easily disappear.
The main reason, I can come up with, that drum instruments were originally considered a list, rather than a piano roll?
And in a list, left to right typically gets represented top to bottom. e.g.
written horizontally:
A,B,C
becomes written vertically
A
B
C
And that’s inconsistent with the concept of turning a sheet of paper with a horizontal list sideways. And/or thinking of a piano roll as roughly analogous to an X/Y axis graph with pitch (frequency being on the Y axis, and time on the X axis).
All that being said, having the option to reverse it, is the perfectly user friendly thing to do. And I would also like it, if the drum map editor would have it. And that’s only one of the limitations of the drum map editor. But I’m not holding my breath for improvements anytime soon.
As a result, another user has even made and shared their own drum map editor - which I should try one of these days: