To all: A great discussion. I offer a quick profile of my DAW/BBW use history and supporting hardware/instruments. I started with BBW 2004 and currently use BBW 2020. I'm primarily a guitarist, but also play keyboard/piano, and other instruments. In the early days I started with Cakewalk Home Studio, then Cubase (lower end version); updated to higher level Cubase, but gave it away due to the dongle shackle (I seldom do anything on line with my music PC) and the "phone home or you can't use the software" angle is completely unacceptable. Imagine you can't use the SW because the internet is down, or the dongle failed, or the company was sold or out of business and you bought a new PC and can’t transfer the software. I tried Abelton live (one-dimensional, awkward interface…recent versions have the same look and feel). I then used Digital Performer (DP) on a friends MAC. I didn’t want to buy a MAC (although in recent years DP became available on both PC/MAC). Then I bought Cakewalk Dimension Pro and SONAR 5 Studio edition (2005) that included other soft-synths. Really liked SONAR 5 and it was stable. A friend of mine showed me his Pro Tools (PT) setup. PT required PT’s proprietary Hardware...a deal breaker. Pro Tools then, and now costs more than I will spend for a DAW.

In 2012 I upgraded to SONAR X1 (some issues at first but subsequent patches cleared most issues for me). And don't laugh… I still use my Presonus Fire-Wire for my home studio audio/midi with Presonus drivers. I use an Edirol Fire-wire unit for my portable rack setup and therefore don’t need ASIO-for-All. My setups are plenty fast for my needs and don’t have to deal with USB bus congestion. I have the free version of Presonus Studio One 4, and it's actually pretty good. I only use it to help a few friends who have the higher level(s) Studio One.

In BBW when I can't get a solution musically I will do that part on guitar/keyboard. When a soft-synth doesn't cut it, I'll use one of my synth-enabled guitars or Yamaha Motif keyboard or Yamaha ES rack and record both MIDI and Audio from the instruments.

Creating notation in BBW isn’t for me, so I use Notion, Guitar-Pro, and an old version of Finale, or MuseScore depending on the situation. The same holds true for printing notation or Chord Charts. BBW recent MXL export improvements have helped when exporting to other applications.

For me, BB is a pallet upon which I take concepts/ideas and use the available BBW features as a first/second cut. Then into my DAW where I refine, rebuild, augment and hopefully achieve my original goal. I take advantage of what BBW has to offer, and fill in the blanks where it doesn't. Additionally, there are areas where I want complete control of the music composition process.

Given the various discussions on software development/maintenance/staffing topics, I'd offer my perspective and background. I'm in my 70's. I am now happily retired from my 50-plus career years in software/hardware development, system design/development and program management that goes back to the teletype and core-memory days (for you old-timer computer types). I've developed and managed development efforts in the low thousands to 100 million dollar range (high-end Super Computing), so I have a solid grasp of what companies/organizations face including Cost, Schedule, and Performance aspects. Typically, a system/application envisioned doing everything often results in some things performing well, others poorly or not at all, or worse, never making it to implementation or production.

Several excellent points and suggestions have been expressed (not just in this thread, but historically) and PGM has responded to and implemented several of them.
So, here's my suggestion to us users and recommendation to PGM.

USERS:
1. Consider refining the scope of suggestions/desired features/functions (user requirements) to what is practical (from the PGM's perspective as well).
2. If you need DAW capabilities, more robust/feature laden notation capabilities, consider obtaining those separately (and as others have said, some are free).
3. Consider the scope of BBW in identifying your needs and prioritize them.
PGM:
1. Assess the suggestions in this forum and wish lists to form an initial baseline of potential new features/functions (requirements) and feasibility thereof for the next major or subsequent release(s), or Roadmap. Understandably, some companies prefer not to produce product roadmaps, but it is useful and usually welcome to the customer/user base. For important features to users, consider giving the users a reasonable time frame (viz., major release).
2. Create a user focused survey based on this and related threads and BB wish lists. Yes, I know some hate surveys, but when conceived with users in mind surveys benefit both parties.

Respectfully Submitted,

Richard