There are only a few remaining advantages to Racks. The main ones off the top of my head
1)Renaming the first audio output
2)Clear differentiation of VSTi, audio and MIDI (exactly the problem you were having)
3)Multi-VSTi need the extra MIDI tracks anyhow
4)MIDI tracks still have a lot of features (like MIDI Sends), that the Instrument track does not
The downside is that Rack Instruments don’t have track presets.
By the way, using a separate MIDI track is probably the “normal” way, but in your first post it sounded like you didn’t want to have an extra track. Also, don’t get stuck on that configuration. It may work for this use, but there are tons of other routings for other things like pseudo ducking or note compression on a multi VSTi … The key is to understand when you are pre/post input and where the MIDI is actually coming from. Once that clicks, these routings won’t cause you as much trouble.