Kari,
on most patch-bays there is a filter for things like program changes, aftertouch, modulation, etc, so the patch-bay would be the only device authorized to send a program change command to your modules.
My patchbay is an old Miditemp PM88; it has a remote controller which is very handy and even an optional foot controller. I doubt that it's still in production, but I don't think that there is a difference in quality between different brands in this case, because the hardware is really very simple; they are just connections. All the "power" is inside the memory bank (mine has 128 banks), but in this case too the software is kind of simple.