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hey Luigi,

DSSI has no presets? that's incorrect i'm afraid, even on the user point of view :)

first, let me throw some ashes to the so called "preset" confusion ou there:

1. host maintained presets - these are gathered, stored and provided by the host application, being qtractor the example at hand. a qtractor preset is a snapshot of a given plugin state, from host pov. qtractor supports these for all plugin types without exception and are stored internally in its configuration file. on special cases where state data is more that just control parameter values (eg. chunk blobs on vst, configurations on dssi, state extension on lv2) these might translate in an external file (.qtx suffix). these kind of presets are named on a plugin basis and accessed from the plugin properties dialog on qtractor (ie. generic gui). you just give it a name and press save. later you can retrieve that named preset for the same plugin, on any other or same plugin instance, track or session, by selecting its saved name from the drop-down list. of course, you the user, are responsible to create these kind of presets, as there are none on day zero.
2. plugin supplied presets - these are special provided by each plugin it self. the user manages preset selection from the plugin's proper gui if any. it's on plugin vendor option whether it comes with a list of already made presets or none at all. these maybe presented in the form of external files or simply built-in. these latter case may also be called "factory presets" in analogy with the outboard hardware (sound module racks, physical keyboard synths, etc.). so it all depends on the specific plugin you're dealing with. only ladspa plugins cannot have these, just because it does not support native gui editors. all other plugin specs apply (dssi, vst or lv2) as long its own gui presents its own dedicated preset management (select/load/save) interface to the user.
3. midi bank/program addressable presets - these are usually an operational extension to the above plugin supplied presets and to date is only supported under dssi and vst specs. iow. the plugin must have its own internal preset database where each entry is mapped to a midi bank and program number. that way presets can be selected via midi bank-select and program-change event messages as part of a session composition setup and/or performance. in qtractor, this interface is supported through the midi track instruments gizmo for proper setup.

in way of conclusion, if a dssi plugin (gui) doesn't show you any presets for pre-listening/selection than, i'm sure, it was the developer or vendor choice for not doing so. it's not dssi design fault. moreover, both dssi and vst specs support the third kind, (c.) midi instrument programs, which lv2 is still lacking, to date. there are some old and new proposals for an lv2 extension for that (lv2_programs?) still in the closet however...

hth.
cheers