This may have been mentioned elsewhere but how about this...
Quarterly new features updates. Monthly bug fix updates.

microapp
This may have been mentioned elsewhere but how about this...
Quarterly new features updates. Monthly bug fix updates.

RD9
Keep in mind, however, that CW's marketing department probably controls this issue now and a monthly payment gives CW a steady income stream that only takes $10 - $15 out of the customer's account rather than $30 - $45 every three months.

It would be interesting to know the proportion of owners who opt for the monthly payment plan.  Even if most people pay for 12 months at once income may still be evened out over the year(s) if some people wait a bit between 'subscriptions'.

xwaveform
lol yes Gigs ;)   well I also do 3D art so I usually try and have a decent Graphics Card

I also do both music and graphics/video. I have separate computers and if I need sound over video, I finish and publish the video before I bring it into my DAW. On my DAW I also just use the Intel chipset for video...the only PCI card I have is the TI 1394 (FireWire) card for my Focusrite interface. Also i7 16GB RAM system like yours. I have lots of plugins as well (mostly the WAVES set in addition to what I've bought from Cakewalk) with no problems, but I have still only upgraded every third or so of the Professional updates. 
 
Note also, that you can rollback after an update quite easily.

microapp
+1 to quarterly updates.
Cubase just released 8.5 and their forum is full of the same complaints about unfixed bugs even though they release only 3 or 4 updates per year.

 
And that's it in a nutshell. You can release every four months and have to contend with four months of bugs all at once, or release every month and have one month of bugs to deal with all at once.
 
The bugs are going to happen no matter what. You can choose to regulate the dosage by how frequently you update.
 

I do not think in either CW's or SB's case the release model is the issue. I think it relates more to marketing philosophy and the need to attract as many new users as possible.

How soon we forget rhose pre-SONAR 2015 days, and all those who clamored for more frequent updates and bug fixes...

Paul P
It would be interesting to know the proportion of owners who opt for the monthly payment plan.  Even if most people pay for 12 months at once income may still be evened out over the year(s) if some people wait a bit between 'subscriptions'.

My understanding is more people opt for the upfront payment, but that a lot of new users go for the monthly plan because they tend to be a younger demographic who have to watch cash flow.
 
The plan behind all this was choice - the payment plan, control over when you upgraded, the different versions of SONAR, etc. - and an attempt to accommodate the requests people made in 2014. 

>> Cubase just released 8.5 and their forum is full of the same complaints about unfixed bugs

Yeah, and Native Instruments sent out an email when El Capitan first came out warning Mac users not to upgrade, and Ableton sent out an apology after version 8 came out because it had problems, and Windows 10 users are complaining about things that don't work with it, and...[fill in the blank].
 
Folks, it's only going to get worse as systems, hardware, and half-a**ed "standards" proliferate while software becomes more complex and fickle consumers demand more and more, regardless of the consequences. I've been warning about this for years, but anyone could see it coming. The best defense: Rock solid hardware, cautious OS upgrades, and an understanding that there are some things that simply will not work and you'll have to deal it with.
 

This argument might hold water if rollbacks were not so painless....
 
THEY ARE FRIGGIN' PAINLESS!!@!@!!!!!@!@!@@!
 
IMO, this "rant" is totally invalid, has NOTHING to do with rolling updates and I just find it incredible that people cannot use their brains to decide simple things like:
 

• do I want to update this month?  yes/no   (please stop trying to take away my right to say "YES!" as updates are always fine on my system and you can say no!!!)
• "oh, i think there's a problem with this new update"... take 2 minutes and rollback and see if it's the update... yes/no... hmmmm... am I gonna be a helpful person and report it in the proper forum??? yes/no
• before ranting about how everything is cakewalk's fault... take a moment and check in here... usually they have nothing to do with Sonar/rolling updates.  
• apologize/change your flamingl, arrogant, and incorrect attack/headline/post when you're wrong...

I went through a troubled time with Sonar a couple of years ago. After a lot of trouble shooting and the help of others here on the forum I found 2 things. My video card was causing intermittent crashes... I replaced the card and the problems all but went away, but still some freezes and crashes that I was not used to. So... I cut/pasted all of my non-cakewalk plugins into another folder and begin a process of bringing over a few at a time to scan and test. I eventually found the offending freebie delay plug that I didn't even use anymore, but having that plugin simply reside in Sonar caused big big problems. Deleted that plugin and Sonar went back to it's stable operation and has remained there. Hope that helps...