I was goingto ask about a member who seems to be missing but...

OK I have to be honest. I don't feel comfortable posting anymore because there's no tolerance for an opinion. I gave my review about the recent update and Craig Anderton tore me a new one. To quote:
 
"Furthermore, I would hardly call 126 IR impulses, 436 MB of loops (which I spent many, many hours editing and tweaking for proper stretching in both WAV and REX formats), an amp optimized for acoustic guitars, and all the other goodies as "floor sweepings." If you actually knew something about loops, and compared them to other commercially available loops, I highly doubt you would call them "floor sweepings."
 
Anyway, you're going to get a year of loops because I do really good loops , and people use them. The loops I did for M-Audio, Wizoo, and Discrete Drums were some of their best-selling titles. Now members get the same level of quality for free. 
 
IF this is the new way, I'm not optimistic. I don't know anything about loops and dance music so the upcoming releases will be useless to me. I also didn't enjoy the comments about how hard he worked on them because it makes it sound like he's doing it all for free out of human kindness. I doubt that anything gets done for free.
 
So add me to the list of users that will be pulling back from forum discussion and contribution. The new amp discussion I started in the hardware forum is the last I'm going to start.
 
By the way, I never criticized his work. He's a superstar and he knows it.

ampfixer
I have to be honest. I don't feel comfortable posting anymore because there's no tolerance for an opinion.

Yup, it seems that you either agree or you are wrong.

There are the exceptional few on these forums with whom I can't seem to get along.
 
Then there's the vast majority of fellow forum users whom I seem to get along with just fine, and, then, a bunch of people I consider genuine friends. 
 
 None of the disagreements I've had w/ anyone ever caused me to question my being here. 
 
But recently I've started spending more time on another discussion forum and yesterday, when I finally logged here after spending time over there, by contrast, it struck me just how much the vibe of this place has changed.
 
You can rationalize it until you're blue in the face, you can track down everyone who voice their concern about it, jump in to prove them wrong - you're only making their point for them. 
 
Incidentally, I'm not taking a shot at hosts here. 
 
Alex is no longer a host, though his M.O. hasn't changed and he's visibly on the same exact relentless crusade.  
 
As for Mr. Anderton, I believe that he is most often speaking as a SONAR/DAW enthusiast, a simple forum member, one of us, w/o realizing that to many people here, he is actually a figure of authority, even if he has no intention of shinning his badge and participating as anything but a true enthusiast.
 
As a user, it's relatively benign to say something like "If you actually knew something about loops". As a host AND someone on the parent company's payroll, however, that's a different story. I've worked Customer Service for years, and I've seen employees suspended for wording things in a manner half as abrasive.
 
In a previous thread, someone mentioned that these forums were like a storefront for Cakewalk. If such is the case, it works both ways. As CS reps, our employees were discouraged from even using negative words - they always had to come up with positive wording, and, first and foremost,  acknowledge the customer's point of view - even in the face of people who were tearing them a new one.
 
Of course, professional empathy doesn't always come from the heart. But that's the difference between professional and personal. You'd NEVER dismiss a customer complain or the way he feels. EVER. You can't have your cake and eat it.
 
Anyway, much to some's dismay I'm sure, this isn't me resigning from this place. :P But I've realized that I tend to not spend as much time around - things have changed, whether we want to acknowledge it or not or spend all our energy justifying it.
 
The vibe and the community here used to abundantly make up for the crappy forum software. But not so much anymore... Yet, I still have a few people I really care for left here, and as long as they're around, I'll continue to drop by.