I worked with Mixcraft for almost two years before migrating to Studio One.
In fact it was Mixcraft that helped me actually get comfortable with the "Language" of mix engineers and helped me get my head wrapped around a lot of technical stuff that just plain confused me at first. Anyone new to In The Box mixing (and uses Windows of course) I would recommend Mixcraft to.
I looked into other DAW's like Reaper, but for me Reaper was way too over the top. Linda & I are a songwriting team, so often times she would write lyrics, and I'd have an instant idea of the arrangement. Reaper by it's very nature kills that instant spark thing as it requires a lot of pre recording set up. DAW's like MC and Studio One allow for nearly instant tracking when the spark of creativity occurs. So it was almost a natural migration from MC to S1.
In my opinion only, S1 takes the best part of MC and Pro Tools and found a way to make them converge.
When you add Band in A Box and Real Band to the forumula you almost have a total studio environment with top flight studio session players waiting in the room to record your music. Can't see anything but "up" from this amazing combination of software. Almost like they are married.