The question, as you quoted it, was whether we have a "good" formalism for this.

I would define "good" in this context as something like "useful for solving the problem at hand". If you would define it simply as "elegant", then I suppose we weren't really disagreeing to begin with. But if you define it the same way I do, then perhaps you've just seen cellular automata do some way more impressive high-level things than I've seen them do.