Believe me, the Hardware Sweep is not doing a different thing than the Arpeggio Macro or pitch slides. Nintendo added it to avoid the need of a advanced playback engine, which is already done in this case. It all can be done in software instead (and is more flexible).
Someone have an example of a powerful Hardware Sweep in the Square 1? Maybe a game?, or a track made in Paragoon 5?
Here's an example i did in LSDJ.
http://chipmusic.org/djmaximum/music/ha
ep-example