There's nothing wrong with off the shelf remaps and tuning boxes. Depends what you want.
I've had a bluefin remap on my car (made by superchips) for years. It cost about £300 and massively improved the bhp and torque output. It's a highly tuneable engine granted (2.5t Ford S-Max same engine as focus ST). With no other supporting mods the bhp goes up from about 220 to 275. Torque was massively up. It came in a few days in the post and can be loaded and unloaded to the car within minutes easily at home.
Yes, if I wanted upmost power and complete control over the map profile, I'd go to a tuner. I wanted something off the shelf, easy, cheap, removable.
@OP, maybe have a look on forums and see what other experiences of the map are like? Some of the off the shelf ones can be quite progressive with a nice profile. Some of them are more spikey and "feel" more lively in their delivery.