Perhaps I should just change my creative process; I'm curious how
other
people deal with this - Compose and then mix? Or compose and mix at the

same time?

Well, if the system works for you, it'd good. You shouldn't have to
change the way you work just to accommodate a different tool.
Personally, I view recording as well as composing, as gathering data.
The data gets edited, altered, rearranged, mixed, & effected after the
initial recording. Thus I don't need to record with the eventual
effects in place. It sounds like you have a perfectly good hammer, & if
you add a screwdriver to the toolkit, it will require rethinking the
building process.

Scott Fraser