My hate of programmed drums is well documented, but I broke down & checked out a 6-hour Eyal Levi tutorial on programming in EZdrummer and am starting to get it. The guy explains everything about how to alter loops to fit your needs, create your own, how to do drum mixes, MIDI editing, the whole deal. Very informative.
I was having trouble finding a beat in my sample library that worked for a certain track, but after watching that and having learned how to edit the MIDI itself I was able to get one working. For example, there was a (ratty sounding) cymbal crash on every 4 that I HATED... gone. Also added an extra hit in the fill that brings it back to the main riff so it worked. I still have to add an intro and some more fills, and I'd like to change it up in a couple of spots, but I like where it's going. And it was giving me fits before taking that course. Cool thing is once I figured out getting the mechanics of it down in Pro Tools getting this far from no drums took about a half an hour. Which means it's only going to get easier from here.
"Bubble" tracks by Jay Hale - Guitarist
The course is available on Creative live and is called Digital Drums with EZdrummer... highly recommend it...