Jim,

In my opinion best approach is taken with Steinberg's Halion
Which has two components: Halion, which has very deep features and smaller brother Sonic - a light weight plugin (or standalone) that can do many things Halion can, without deep editing features.

In theory, sure BIAB can become "all in one solution" without the need of "separate" DAW, and the Plugin could be used in the 3rd party DAW of choice with less of deep features. But a lot of work needed to make BIAB a DAW like program. No matter how close it can get to DAW workflow, it is very different in many ways, so it would require different kind of thinking in making the best of DAW like features integrated well with very specific BIAB features.

Ok....

"If you were charged by Peter Gannon to come up with a one year, five year or ten year plan "

One year plan -
BIAB:
Major cleanup which can start with:
1 Start integrating non-modal pop up box menus into the workflow and eliminating those modal boxes (not leaving them as a secondary "way") An example would be current Partial regeneration Modal and Non-modal box menus.
2 Consolidation, clear wording and position (priority) of Menus
3 Addressing known long standing issues (for example 255 bar limit, working with MIDI patterns, etc.)
4 GUI. Start thinking about making elements modular. High resolution icons and Dark theme. Touch audio / midi track navigation.
5 If 255 bar limit is broken, would start development of User Track console, which would accept complete template in a single BIAB session. End goal: User Track wizard / assistant for RTs or MIDI.

Plugin:
Stability across different DAWs and Compatibility with files shared between BIAB -> Plugin and wise versa.

RTs/MIDIs: Less of what is recorded, more of what is not.


Five year plan... That is a tough one. I will Try smile

Most of internal code is updated:
instant RT playback
accommodation of all time signatures,
GUI is well established and accepted by most: Fully customizable, resizable and modular.
Universal picker for all creative content. A single place / librarian.
Full DAW features, with no track limit.
Changing WMAs to FLAC or similar.
Chord / structure theory assistant.
Integration with future plugins, that may include AI.
Distribute 24 bit Audio
Bug tracking system.

Plugin:
Sold as a separate entity
Instant playback
Live Arranger
Hardware Live arranger module smile

RTs/MIDI/styles and other content sorted in a way, so it does not create confusion.
Expanding on current idea: "What add-ons I have"

Ten year plan..... Jim this is getting hard...

Flexibility. Being able to adopt easily to people's needs, yet being able to surprise with some features not available anywhere else. Record world class musicians.

Phew... that is short of it.