I guess you just can't please everybody. I don't know what Cakewalk's motive is and neither do you.  Maybe they do want to appear generous. Maybe they just want to get people to try out new packs. Maybe this is all part of a very convoluted evil plot by the Illuminati and you sell your soul the moment you type in the code. I honestly have not seen a great deal of talk about Cakewalk's generosity regarding this offer  probably because it is clearly less generous than offers in the past.  In any case, Cakewalk owes us nothing except support for what we paid for. So either use the offer or leave it. Very few ads lead with the downside of the deal if they mention them at all. Cakewalk making a pitch for an offer that is somewhat less than it originally seems if skimmed is not new to Cakewalk or product marketing in general.  If you don't like the offer, just skip it.  In some ways they may have been better off not making the offer at all since it merely gives the disgruntled fuel to rant about unrelated matters.
 
As for the interface, there are a few that are stuck on 8.53, but most appear to favor X Series.  Critics certainly do.  if they left X1 as it was there would be people claiming they were not making progress.  personally, I found 8.5x clunky and horribly unintuitive compared to other DAWs.  Sonar had to change.  There will always be people who hate change ad Cakewalk is wise to cater to moving forward instead of playing the un-winnable game of trying to please those who want to stand still or have Cakewalk make a custom program just for them. When I see comments  still pining for 8.5 three versions later (not including patches) I wan tto send them to reaper since reaper pretty much looks however you want it to and is highly customizable

dubdisciple
 
...As for the interface, there are a few that are stuck on 8.53, but most appear to favor X Series.  Critics certainly do.  if they left X1 as it was there would be people claiming they were not making progress.  personally, I found 8.5x clunky and horribly unintuitive compared to other DAWs.  Sonar had to change. 

+1 here.   I haven't opened 8.x since the X1 era but I also found it less appealing and sort of clunky after working in X1 for a while. And after working in X3, I don't think I could even go back to X1!
 
FWIW, I also own Studio One which is arguably more efficient with regards to screen space.  And while it's great to see more tracks at one time, I find the rest of the UI to be too small, requiring a higher level of precision just to access its tools.  Going back to SONAR the icons and spacing are bigger, but I find myself able to actually work faster because of that.  Plus I just like the way it looks.  
 

dubdisciple
 
As for the interface, there are a few that are stuck on 8.53, but most appear to favor X Series.  Critics certainly do.  if they left X1 as it was there would be people claiming they were not making progress.  personally, I found 8.5x clunky and horribly unintuitive compared to other DAWs.  Sonar had to change.  There will always be people who hate change ad Cakewalk is wise to cater to moving forward instead of playing the un-winnable game of trying to please those who want to stand still or have Cakewalk make a custom program just for them. When I see comments  still pining for 8.5 three versions later (not including patches) I wan tto send them to reaper since reaper pretty much looks however you want it to and is highly customizable

Speaking as one of those who only made the jump to X series this time round and also as one who had to open a project on 8.53 yesterday that X3 wouldn't open for some reason, I realised that I still haven't changed from what I always thought about X series...........Main / Track view is much better to look at generally, but some of the functionality is not all that / borderline annoying and having used X3 a while now 8.5 does look kinda clunky in that view, but I so wish they'd left the console view alone. I thought I was becoming less visually offended by the "new" version, but looking at that old project made me realise all over again just how much they ruined it.

paulo
 
Speaking as one of those who only made the jump to X series this time round and also as one who had to open a project on 8.53 yesterday that X3 wouldn't open for some reason, I realised that I still haven't changed from what I always thought about X series...........Main / Track view is much better to look at generally, but some of the functionality is not all that / borderline annoying and having used X3 a while now 8.5 does look kinda clunky in that view, but I so wish they'd left the console view alone. I thought I was becoming less visually offended by the "new" version, but looking at that old project made me realise all over again just how much they ruined it.

You will be assimilated, resistance is futile ;)
 
 

The Dark and Dirty pack for Z3TA is not part of the sale, it is a third party product. Only certain Cakewalk products are included in the sale.

 
I don't think there is one.  I would have liked the z3ta video...