Great post David! I have some thoughts (surprise!)

First regarding telling others about using Band-in-a-Box my short answer is...don't! There are way too many pissing matches just begging to be fought with friends, fans, musicians, producers, etc. Just steer clear of all of those and keep your "secrets" to yourself!

And since I have rarely if ever been a sneezer (Seth Godin's definition; not the one in Urban Dictionary!), I have very little interest in promoting the product since I do not receive royalties or discounts for doing so.

Next, as to why Band-in-a-Box is not more widely accepted and acknowledged I think there are several reasons and below are just a few I thought of...

1) As you pointed out, there is great skepticism that the product will do what it claims. When I first bought it in 2012 I was quite skeptical as it sounded too good to be true. Were it not for the enthusiasm here in the forums I probably would have taken a pass on it. Even when I was entering my credit card I did not believe it did what they said and I was prepared to exercise the 30 return option!

2) The price to get started is fairly high; it will not usually be an impulse purchase. And the cheaper packages do not deliver the true BIAB experience since they include such a limited subset of RealTracks.

3) BIAB makes it super easy to create an awesome classic country song, a cool classic rock and roll song, a beautiful classic surf song and I guess classic jazz songs. But note the word "classic". To me it is a whole lot harder to create something that sounds fresh and in line with 2017 popular music. Maybe part of that is the modern music is more complicated and does not follow the classic song structures and maybe BIAB could just use some modernizing when it comes to RealTracks. I know someone is going to jump in and tell me it will produce perfect 2017 music but if so I have not figured out how to do that!!

4) On a related note, there is likely a concern among professional musicians that using a product like BIAB to write original songs is risky because many of the RealTracks have an almost signature sound that can make songs sound too similar to each other.

5) The interface still looks and feels outdated and is still too complex and confusing. I know this will start a firestorm among some folks around here but younger people care about the interface and overall ease of use! That is why you see such sleek GUIs being offered for almost every other modern music product.