I personally lean towards hardware synths and have never been a real fan of most of the soft synths. I also wonder if some of the issues people have is not with the sound but with the GM standard. GM is a good idea but the GM patches always seem to be inferior. Want a good synth for cheap? Go on the net and buy an older rack mount synth used. I still use my trusty Roland 1080 which most all studios owned and you can get those for 100 bucks.