fwiw i also prefer the "traditional" release cycle over subscription

Steady is the word about Sonar under the membership system. A steady income stream for them, steady updates and new features for us. And there have been many updates and new features since the start of membership. Having had sonar professional for several years before the membership thingee the updates would come in spurts.  After awhile updates were saved for a new version.  With a new version comes all the costs associated with marketing, change overs etc.  The membership system calms that cycle down somewhat, which means things are more steady for the business and for the customer.  No longer will features and updates that the customer can use, even bug fixes, be saved for the next big release - at least not to the extent things were before.
 
Going to a membership system and then just milking it for all its worth is *not* what they did.
 
 

rickidoo
With a new version comes all the costs associated with marketing, change overs etc.  The membership system calms that cycle down somewhat, which means things are more steady for the business and for the customer.  

In theory yes, that is a good thing.
 
But does it really make you open you wallet again - unless something you want is there already?
If you hold back and wait until something bigger - there is no new money for Cake is there?
 
Overall strategy is maybe to spread out payment over the year - and doing Mixreall at first release, then upsampling in spring and patchpoint in fall - that is what is happening probably.
 
But annual anniversay had nothing, to my suprise.
 
Top voted features on forum has been notation(a couple from Susan G), Arranger tracks(from me) and collapsable track folders in mixer from lawajawa. Not everybody want and need VCA faders, but it's there also but not top voted yet - but think it is mandatory if to attract pro folks, all major daws but Ableton, Digital Performer and Sonar have it. There is plenty spinoff on having the pro's using Sonar.
With this in place, I wonder if Sonar isn't top dog then - I'll go Sonar Pro at least, just making demos of own songs, not taking clients at all. And now that Cubase is dependent of deprecated Quicktime I'll do film score in Sonar too starting this year.
 
Just save one major thing to where the major crowd is renewing.
Or Cake just prefer and save this for later to move folks to summer updates - there are too many beginning year?
This could be it.

I think it varies person to person. Personally, I like the annual payment model because it lets me budget what it is going to cost. I do a lot of that kind of thing at work, basically trying to work out what a given service/item costs on a yearly basis when you account for purchase, service, lifecycle and so on. So I apply the same thing to my personal life. Well, when something has a fixed yearly (or monthly) cost to maintain it, makes the numbers real easy. I pays $X per year and I'm good.

Sycraft
I think it varies person to person.

Obviously, this.
 
I prefer the sub model.  I also update maybe twice a year to minimize the "gremlin effect". 
 
Cubase has some great features (chord tracks, strong notation), but that 50 shades of gray mixer is just not to my liking.  No, let me rephrase that.... I absolutely hate it.  

lfm
Now as my Sonar membership expired in feb, I have looked to see what major stuff was saved up for one year anniversary and probably the largest crowd of users are to open their wallets again.
 
To my disappointment - nothing was saved up - not a single surprise feature?

If Cakewalk had done that, some would complain that the marketing people at Cakewalk forced engineering to hold back on an important new feature just to make people upgrade, that really sucks, I'm switching to Reaper, etc. No matter what Cakewalk does, there are people who will complain about it.
 
The crux of your post is about what matters to you. I guess VCA faders matter to you because you might need them someday, but they don't matter to me. Nor does being able to put buses or folders within folders. You didn't mention Drum Replacer as a major 2015 feature so I guess it didn't matter to you, but I've salvaged many a track with it - and its audio-to-MIDI triggering capabilities, combined with Melodyne's audio-to-MIDI, are incredibly useful...but only if you use MIDI. The Paint tool, which is quite cool, also matters only if you use MIDI. Enhanced Clip support has been a big deal for me, as have the optimizations - SONAR has never been faster - and VocalSync. But, if you do only instrumental work and never need to do ADR, then VocalSync wouldn't matter to you.
 
In March we had Tempo Detection so you can have tempo follow freely-played parts or parts without a click automatically - that's huge (Studio One is the only other DAW that has it, although it's a more cumbersome implementation). However if all you do is four-on-the-floor EDM, then it wouldn't matter to you. The new EQ and Multiband linear phase, channel independent, mid-side-friendly processors are exceptionally good processors by any standards. But if you don't care about mid-side processing, are content not being able to process the left and right channels independently, and are happy with the phase issues of analog emulations, then they wouldn't matter to you.
 
Personally I think the idea of holding back stuff just to lure people into renewing goes against what the Membership model is all about, which is to allow Cakewalk to release new stuff when it's ready. I felt Newburyport was a lackluster update, but after seeing what happened in March and April, it's understandable - Tempo Detection and the new processors are complex features, and Cakewalk waited until they were ready.
 
Because I work with a huge variety of projects, from narration to video scores, all the features mentioned above are useful to me. If they're not useful to you...well, then they're not...which to most users, is probably as irrelevant as their being useful to me. All that really matters, and frankly all that should matter, is whether the features are useful to them. 

Hi. I must say that I like this current model, and love the frequent updates. And as others have said, I like to take in bit by bit when things are available compared to the older versions (when I felt like I had to take it all in at once). It has been worth it by far on my end . And I like to play with new "toys"
All the best.

Anderton
 
In March we had Tempo Detection so you can have tempo follow freely-played parts or parts without a click automatically - that's huge (Studio One is the only other DAW that has it, although it's a more cumbersome implementation). However if all you do is four-on-the-floor EDM, then it wouldn't matter to you. The new EQ and Multiband linear phase, channel independent, mid-side-friendly processors are exceptionally good processors by any standards. But if you don't care about mid-side processing, are content not being able to process the left and right channels independently, and are happy with the phase issues of analog emulations, then they wouldn't matter to you.
 
 

Thanks for your thorough comment.
And you are right in the sense that what matters to one person is a don't care by another.
 
But don't agree it would be anything like lure anybody, having something major saved up for expire date for the many. Having 50% discount renewing before end of year really tells you want us hanging in there - features are the best way and more important than cost.
 
If it's automatic Tempo Detection it's cool.
I recently did on Cubase, and I had to use Logical Editor for the midi stuff to be stretched.
They have Tempo Detection but it has to be 7s long - and it was an intro I wanted to change tempo on to match tempo map. So to change from 137 bpm to 89.8 bpm tempo I had to insert formulas for that relationship to stretch the clip - so nothing automatic about it. Beat Calculator helped a bit.
Haven't tried audio tempo detection in Cubase yet and don't know how cumbersome it would be.
Many things in Cubase are uphill battle - but it works really well once getting how to do it and all Waves plugins are supported with no exceptions. Some Waves favourites are not supported by Sonar, reasons I left Reaper too.
 
Cakewalk Sonar has improved and superseeded many things in Cubase and I'm sure you will continue doing that. That's why I bother looking.
 
And still wait for top voted stuff on Features and Ideas forum to be recognized by devs.
Certain things are not needing a vote - as Seth or Noel announced a year or so ago - you look at trend in musical industry etc. I think VCA's fit that part. Trying on film score this year for me - I'm sure VCA's are really useful - having much larger parts balanced consistently without having to alter send automation as well.
 
I keep looking at Sonar and what is happening.....

I think membership has brought a lot of stability to the software. There is more feedback between iterative releases and if a problem arises it tends to be smaller and can be dealt with very quickly and effectively.

Not every release or feature excites me, but I like knowing that I won't have to wait too long for something that does or, at a minimum, a steady stream of fixes and small improvements.

I've spent more on a plugin that I rarely use than an annual membership for Sonar which I use every day. I don't begrudge this cost one bit.

lfm
If it's automatic Tempo Detection it's cool.

 
It's not just tempo detection, it's tempo following. If you have a part whose tempo varies, the tempo map will  vary. For example, to test it out I played a rhythm guitar part where the tempo sounded like the guitar player was on tranquilizers, then the coffee kicked in, and finally the tempo fell off a cliff to really slow. I was shocked that SONAR (and therefore Addictive Drums) followed it perfectly, although it's important to set Melodyne to percussion mode on really wild tempo changes. If this isn't a major feature, I'm not sure what is 
 
The way it works is like this: you drag the audio clip you want SONAR to follow to the time line. That's it.
 
As to VCA grouping, I believe the main reason for its introduction in other programs is for Pro Tools users. Pro Tools used to have several grouping limitations (not being able to group record and input monitor, not being able to group faders with separate outputs, etc.) and PT 7.2 addressed those by adding VCA grouping. However, SONAR doesn't have those limitations, and Quick Grouping took SONAR's grouping one step further. Also, SONAR has had the ability to group ratiometrically as well as linearly, AND do custom grouping curves, for as long as I can remember. 
 
There have been discussions of VCA grouping in these forums and it seems relevant only in specific situations with post-fader effects and busing. However, maybe I just don't "get" it (which is entirely possible) but I don't see anything that can't be done in SONAR with grouping, buses, and/or aux tracks/patch points. As most of the comments about the desirability of VCA grouping involve separate effect levels on drums, I think it might be possible to create a Track Template with all the bus and aux track assignments needed to do whatever VCA grouping can do. That would simplify matters even further.