Ok, I've licked my wounds and gone to grief counseling.  Now I'm preparing to move on.  Sort of.
 
I'm looking for any input you have about which other Daws you've test driven.  Negatives and positives are welcome. 
As for me:
 
Studio One 3 (Why don't they just call it "Studio" and then add the version number?  I.e. "Studio 3".  Anyway . . . )  -I like it.  Very intuitive.  I gave it the Jude "Idjut-Test" which is, "how much can I use this thing without referring to the manual".  I was able to record audio/midi, add plugins and do basic editing after about 10 minutes.  It's a front runner right now.
Sampletude -No.  just no.  Others seem to love it.  I'd appreciate some feedback here.
Reaper -It feels "basic".  Hard to explain, but sort of "no elegance".  It's sort of like that blind date you had in college.  She was nice and reasonably attractive, but lacked that je ne c'est quoi.  But then it's only $60.  I'll definitely look at it more.  Apparently, you can customize it to your liking.  That's a big plus.
 
Where are the rest of you guys?

Going fully to Cubase. It has everything and more of what I'm needing to write, create, produce. It's a full program. One of the big three DAWs. So I've already gotten into it and I like it. A lot! It looks good. It has an easy on the eyes coloring scheme. The tracks, mixing console, navigation are all well thought out. There are tons of YouTube and training materials on it.

StudioOne clearly has energy and momentum, and what appears as a fan base from Sonar refugees.

I am also going to take advantage of the StudioOne crossgrade sale next week to get it at a compelling price. I'll learn it so that I can hang with the crowd. But Cubase is what I'll be creating music in.

To take it further, I may create my next 5 songs in both Cubase and StudioOne and truly evaluate my experience and final decision which is best for me for the next 20 years or however long it will be viable. Here's hoping for another long platform. Cakewalk and Sonar have been great.

20 years?!
 
 

Switched over to Studio One as my main DAW over a year ago.  Gradual transition that started with experimentation with that and Reaper over 3 years ago.  I found Studio One more intuitive, and then watched some Groove 3 videos to fill in the gaps.  Watching videos for Reaper made me feel like it was made by tweakers for tweakers.  It had kind of a "hey, look how I can be modified to do anything for anybody, by anybody who has time to dig in and make it do it."

I am staying with Sonar as my main Daw of choice, however, I am investing $29.99 in Harrison Mixbus 4 to check out it's mixing capabilities.   Sonar isn't broken so there is no reason to stop using it.  Cakewalk will stop production on it's software line up, but that doesn't affect me in any way.
 
Now if Microsoft changes Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum has to be modified, then I'll have to move on down the road to maybe Studio One who will have support for their product.  However, ....until that time arrives,  Sonar Platinum has a place in my studio.

Genghis
Watching videos for Reaper made me feel like it was made by tweakers for tweakers.

Truer words have never been spoken.

You might want to check out Mixcraft. A former Cakewalk employee that works there and has posted on this forum inviting sonar refugees to take a look. It's a lot better than expected. I really like it but I'm starting to lean towards Studio One. Mixcraft has a free fully-functional trial just like Studio One.

I am looking at S1 and Mixcraft mainly because I find the Melodyne ARA implementation a must have.  S1 looks more polished that Mixcraft and I expect there are a lot more resources for learning S1.  I have downloaded the demo and it doesn't feel much different than Sonar.  Hot keys and terminology are different, but that can be learned.
 
I wouldn't normally be looking to jump in this situation, but I feel I am only 25% up the Sonar learning curve.  I could spend more time learning Sonar, but eventually it will stop working due to an OS update and that effort (learning) will have been wasted.  This will likely be the best time to jump on board a new DAW cost-wise due to the crossgrade offers.

Yeah that's a big plus with Studio 1 - there are tons of YouTube tutorial videos. Any problems with workflow I had with the demo I just did a YouTube search and sure enough I found a video that explained my issue.

I plan on continuing with SPlat for a while. It works fine for me. I've been using Calkwalk products since the late 80's and over the years I skipped a number of updates so I used a given release for a few years. As a hobbyist I see no reason to get new SW. My DAW is running Win 7.1 and I don't foresee any problems for a while. Over the years I've upgraded to full products of what I've liked in Sonar - the Overloud stuff, AD2, and the instruments and fx I use are 3rd party. The only thing I think I need is a pultec eq, so I'll go a head and pick that up.
 
I've looked around a bit and since I have the plugins I use I don't think I need the pro level packages, I just need the basic recording/editing features. At a glace Reaper, Tracktion Waveform, and Mixcraft all look like possibilities, but I'm in no hurry to decide. I can wait for BF a year or two from now.