Robh
i only wish everyone the best.
happy new year to you.
and if you want a detailed reasoning so it makes sense pm me.
i'll be happy to explain it , but its a tad lengthy .

frankly two things have happened to make me much happier with
the plug in concept.
one being the underlying hardware now is getting the needed power to run
many instances of plug ins. (eg i7 processor). and its only going to get better
from here on in with more cores n more power on tap in a pc.
but some studios in order to run the number of plug in instances they wanted
to run have had to spend lots on processing power.
the second reason being that the plug ins themselves seem to be maturing
due to programmers haveing had a lot of experience developing plug ins.

there is a new daw product on the block called propellerhead record .
i understand it doesnt provide plug in support as ptpa didnt years back.
maybe they have good technical reasons.
god bless. and pm me if you wish.

retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.