Is Platinum worth it? I'm a little nervous!

I have X3e producer, and am intrigued by the whole membership and updates and extras. But since I decided to browse the forum, all I see all over the place is "braintree " this and that, none of it too positive. I would like to give it a shot, but not if it's going to take me a week to sort through all of the fallout from installing a new version. My primary concerns are how it is going to affect :
1) melodyne (I have editor)
2) Rapture (already have)
3) Dimension pro (ditto)
4) AD2 (I already have it as well as one Artist pack installed) do they give you promo codes, or what?
Are the above mentioned "new" versions (release x.x) or are they going to make me chase my tail re-registering them doing rollbacks to recover things,etc.
Surely, some of you have a similar situation to mine. How'd it go for you?
I asked this question in another thread yesterday, but didn't get a lot of feedback(although what I did get was helpful). That was before I started really digging in and found a lot of users questioning the whole process.
I need some advice and reassurance before I leap.
Thanks,
Tim

I've been following the comments closely, and it seems that if you submit to the borg and just let CCC do its thing, it works. I've one seen a couple complaints about what's in the update itself, even a couple people who don't have any particular need for what's in there recognize that others will and it's a good selection. There's mostly confusion about what does and does not get installed, where it gets installed, why you can't choose where it gets installed (except for VSTs), a desire for more granular installation (.e.g, just the operating manual PDF and not the other tutorials and help), and whether things get overwritten.
 
I've been doing a la carte installations up until now, but several people have said that CCC doesn't know about what it hasn't installed, which I assume is correct. So I figured what the heck - I'll do a full install, get CCC up to date, and make it happy.
 

That's what I needed to know, scook, thanks to all for chiming in, as I'm running out of time to get in under the wire.
As I said in a similar post yesterday, The AD2 Producer bundle is worth it all by itself,  as this goes for $249 on their site. You can never have too big of a drum library! Count me in as one of the converted!

scook

Anderton

scook
I do see many posts about giving up on Platinum, just posts about things that could be improved. 

Based on what comes after the comma, did you mean to say you don't see many posts about giving up on Platinum? 

it was a typo, I corrected it.

Thanks Steve. Remember, you're dealing with a recovering ediholic from all those years of working at magazines. However -  I have stopped correcting grammar in casual conversations, so I'm improving. In fact, the doctors say I will soon be well enough not to pound my head into walls when I see "it's" used to indicative the possessive. 

Anderton
 
Thanks Steve. Remember, you're dealing with a recovering ediholic from all those years of working at magazines. However -  I have stopped correcting grammar in casual conversations, so I'm improving. In fact, the doctors say I will soon be well enough not to pound my head into walls when I see "it's" used to indicative the possessive. 

I credit "Grammatik IV" with improving my second trip through college by at least one letter grade. That and word processing all assignments in WordPerfect include math and CS.

I would ask Zo if this is an assessment of Platinum v. X3 or some other version. I believe Zo does not use X3.

It's been keeping me busy. I've been having fun!

Sarcasm aside, Craig, although you've blessed those who may not read product issue details with fine information, having listed every possible notable improvement/change, it seems a bit defensive.  I would seriously ask, as I don't come here often, do you work for/with Cakewalk, or have vested interests in the company?
 
And I say that because there are so many places that advanced users such as you and me could have already found and reviewed the great features and developmental progress offered in Platinum OTHER than an immediate reply here that it just looks defensive and a bit "company guy".
 
I say this because I wanted, with my rightful opinion and privilege to express myself to another user, to convey what might be a simple, practical viewpoint to someone who was on the fence about the upgrade purchase.  I use Sonar daily, and have done so with the embodiment of Cakewalk's DAW products for over twenty years.  My posting was my basic feeling about this issue.  X3 was doing fine in so many ways that are entirely similar to the function of Platinum that I spoke such.  This is a user forum.
 
Now, if I take your example and list all the things that ARE THE SAME in form, function and application we'd lose about five feet of text space on this page, and it would indeed be even more of a contrived effort (although less sarcastic) than your effort to list all the possible (but not used collectively, as listed, buy anyone) changes.
 
Sonar kicks butt.  X3 kicks butt, but I've not clicked on it for a week.  Platinum rolls excellently, in many respects; it just didn't change a great deal for what I would guess are many users, and I want to put that out there.  No need for the cavalry -- especially the sarcasm troops, as this place has enough contention and smarty-pants responses to go around already.
 

And indeed we had one with X3 and prior.  Heck, Sonar Producer 8 was a great help to me and so many studio producers.  The evolution never ends!

Unfortunately what I intend as humor often comes off as sarcasm...I say a lot of stuff with a smile on my face, not teeth clenched in anger. I'm not a fan of a text-only medium. At my seminars, I often make a lot of comments which if you were to write them down, would look snarky but they're the "laugh lines" that loosen up a crowd when accompanied by a grin.
 
It never occurred to me to put an affiliation in my sig because I've always been a huge SONAR supporter; the affiliation is in all my blog posts, and my forum posts aren't that different than what I've been posting long before the Gibson acquisition. But I think it's a good idea. The only problem is that I'm a Gibson employee, not a Cakewalk one, and I don't have to be here...I'm here because I want to be. So I'm not quite sure how to describe myself, especially because I'm so familiar with the software I also point out issues that others might not encounter. I'm still waiting for them to fix the VX-64 problem...and wondering why clicking on the CCC Platinum ProChannel Collection crashes the CCC... [Edit: scook pointed out that users will not encounter this, mine was a unique case because I did not clear out settings from something I tested.]
 
I'll try to keep this short. I felt in 2013 that Cakewalk was going down the tubes, and I'm not ashamed to admit I wanted to steal a Cakewalk employee for Gibson before the company disappeared and he was hired by someone else. That's when I found out the company was for sale. Gibson Brands' CEO has been a Cakewalk user since DOS, and when I asked if he wanted me to research this opportunity, he saw unrealized potential and said yes.
 
Cakewalk had a lot of plans they had never been able to implement for a variety of reasons. Despite the condition of the company, I felt if they could do what they always wanted to do, they could turn it around. And the company did something amazing - turned around a very bad year into a good one in the last three months of 2013. X3 (which was "baked" before the acquisition) was a great release and the community's faith in Cakewalk, which was rewarded by X3, basically saved the company.
 
So I have a business reason for wanting Cakewalk to succeed, although my job is not dependent on their success. But that's dwarfed by my personal reasons for wanting Cakewalk to succeed. I've known the people there for a couple decades and they are some of the nicest, sharpest, most dedicated people I've seen in any company - and I've consulted to companies literally from A to Z, including major companies like Microsoft but also Steinberg, Ableton, Native Instruments, Peavey, TASCAM, etc. etc. I know how much the people at Cakewalk care about their customers and how much they appreciate the community's support.
 
I was at meetings where the membership program was discussed and the entire thrust of it was "how do we create happy customers?" That was their sole motivation. Of course, a zillion happy customers would have business benefits. But the motivation wasn't "how do we have better cash flow?" and then they worked backwards from there. So when the program was introduced and the cynics came out saying that it was a money-grubbing scheme, Cakewalk would just take the money and not deliver anything, and that Cakewalk didn't care about its community, it was really disturbing to me that people could be that cynical and that distrusting. I understand why - I can read a newspaper as well as anyone else - but here was a company that was being idealistic and placing the customer first, and they were greeted with distrust and derision by some.
 
Yes, that does bother me. A lot. But it would also bother me if, say, Ableton did the same thing and got the same reaction. I have a lot of friends at Ableton and that company is also filled with nothing but dedicated people. My impatience with the human race is not limited to reactions to Cakewalk 
 
And yes, I do want Cakewalk to be successful. But 90% of that is because I'm a hardcore SONAR user, I depend on it, and I want the program to go as far as Cakewalk can take it. The other 10% that's business-related comes out of that. If I left Gibson tomorrow, my opinion would not change. If anything, I would become more of a booster because then no one could question my motives.

I'm not a kid. I'll be dead before too long. I'm concerned the window is closing for trying to make this a better world. I feel Cakewalk is composed of people who want to make this a better world, they're doing what they can to implement that goal, and yes, I want the good guys to win.

whitejs
Sarcasm aside, Craig, although you've blessed those who may not read product issue details with fine information, having listed every possible notable improvement/change, it seems a bit defensive.  I would seriously ask, as I don't come here often, do you work for/with Cakewalk, or have vested interests in the company?
 
And I say that because there are so many places that advanced users such as you and me could have already found and reviewed the great features and developmental progress offered in Platinum OTHER than an immediate reply here that it just looks defensive and a bit "company guy".
 
I say this because I wanted, with my rightful opinion and privilege to express myself to another user, to convey what might be a simple, practical viewpoint to someone who was on the fence about the upgrade purchase.  I use Sonar daily, and have done so with the embodiment of Cakewalk's DAW products for over twenty years.  My posting was my basic feeling about this issue.  X3 was doing fine in so many ways that are entirely similar to the function of Platinum that I spoke such.  This is a user forum.
 
Now, if I take your example and list all the things that ARE THE SAME in form, function and application we'd lose about five feet of text space on this page, and it would indeed be even more of a contrived effort (although less sarcastic) than your effort to list all the possible (but not used collectively, as listed, buy anyone) changes.
 
Sonar kicks butt.  X3 kicks butt, but I've not clicked on it for a week.  Platinum rolls excellently, in many respects; it just didn't change a great deal for what I would guess are many users, and I want to put that out there.  No need for the cavalry -- especially the sarcasm troops, as this place has enough contention and smarty-pants responses to go around already.
 

You have every right to your opinion.  My view is completely different form yours. Platinum is a major release that is great not just because of very useful new feature but because a boat load of bugs are fixed in it. Plus it offers continued improvement for the duration of the membership. The new stuff is very very nice but for me the biggest to get Platinum is just how well it works.  X3 e was a very good version and I take nothing from it when I say Platinum is as much improved in its stability and smoothness as X3 was over X2. 
 
Because you don't see these things well you think there is no advantage in upgrading. You couldn't be more wrong. 
 
As to Mr. Anderton he is a huge asset to this forum. That may not be important to you but it is to me and most every one else. You have no right or license to question his being here at all.
 
You may disagree with him all you want but you may not question his integrity.    

 I give you Craig the same rights I give him and you are not allowed to question you!