sharke
I have to admit that since switching to Reaper I vastly prefer its mixing console. The reason being is that it's just so much more configurable. There are so many different layouts and sizes for the channel strips, and you can configure them separately on a track by track basis. So if you want to, for example, keep all of your drum strips narrow, and all the others wide, you can do that. And of course folders in the console, something Sonar could really do with. I also like how Reaper has a separate "monitoring FX" chain between the master bus and the outputs, so you can throw all of your ARC2 and Sonarworks type stuff in there without having to worry about turning it off for the export, and without having to create a new bus to route the master through like you do in Sonar to achieve a similar effect. Hope Cakewalk takes on a few of these ideas in the future. 

Yeah, this. 
 
As far as visuals go I really do prefer the console in Cakewalk over Studio One.  With tired eyes and long sessions Cakewalk just looks, I don't know....it just looks right.  And by default too.  Reaper would be a very very close 2nd.

From what I can see from this small sample space we have : 4 yes, 4 it subjective, and 1 No. I interpret that as there are grounds to think that my initial proposition could be true :) Not bad.

Lately I'm preferring Mixbus32C. Groups of tracks and buses can be shown/hidden via a single mouse click. That's a boon.

With all due respect, no.  I have great respect for Sonar, for the long time I spent with it, but I like Studio One and Mixbus much better, especially Studio One.  I was shocked how much better I liked it and how much faster everything was.  I found track navigation way faster and easier in Studio One.  Also, when I go back to the Sonar console, the faders seem impossibly short.

Sonar's (I refuse to call it CBB) mix screen has always been one its selling points I think you will find. Once people use Sonar's mixer - there tends to be a lot of people who say the same thing as the OP. Even those wedded to other DAWs. It seems to be for the fact, that the mixer indeed behaves and looks like a proper mixer. Two of the best functions of Sonar's mixer are the gain knob - allowing the mixer to set gain structure after the fact. Also the mix recall is another handy function.

The gain knob though is really important. What most who start mixing don't get is that to get a mix sounding right in the digital - you still need to set the gain stage throughout the signal chain. I think because other programs don't have this knob on their mix channels...mixers forget that the gain knob is an important tool within an mix engineers' tool kit in regards to having consistently high signal levels (important for some analouge emulation plugs).

After using Cubase for a while, I really prefer Cakewalk's console . . . everything's right there, it has the feel of a real mix console, EFX bin and ProChannel, so useful . . . but, one thing the Cubase mix console has going for it is the horizontal scale ability. You can scrunch or enlarge the console view horizontally with a simple key command.
(Probably not as useful with large projects with 30+ tracks, 'cause you can only scrunch so much, but it works great for smaller projects)

Coming from Sonar's world it's easy to forget how important the gain knob is. Recently I was looking closer on some other DAWs after Gibson shut down Cakewalk and I realized it's really hard to find it on the other consoles indeed.
 
But the clean ProTools look and Harrison's natural workflow are great too.

+1 for MixBus32C workflow and sound. Sonar +1 for midi composition and synths.

chris.r
Coming from Sonar's world it's easy to forget how important the gain knob is. Recently I was looking closer on some other DAWs after Gibson shut down Cakewalk and I realized it's really hard to find it on the other consoles indeed.
 
But the clean ProTools look and Harrison's natural workflow are great too.

The lack of gain knob in studio one pisses me off.  used to piss me off in logic too, but they addressed it finally

Gain knob is not required in Studio One.  What you can do in Studio One is simply edit the volume of any audio event on a track (individually which you cannot do with the gain knob effecting a whole track so its actually better) by simply grabbing the gain handle and raising or lowering.  Unlike Sonar you can see the changes in waveform height immediately.  After a while you can get pretty savvy at just looking at waveforms and getting all their rms levels very consistent.  Before you start a mix.
 
If you track properly as well using a VU meter you will also never need a gain knob either.  It is when you get material from someone else that has done the tracking that you are more likely to see inconsistent rms levels on tracks.  In that situation I tend to open them all up one by one in an editor and with a VU over the tracks make all the adjustments there.  It is far more accurate than fiddling a gain knob. 
 
As far as the mixer is concerned it depends on who you are talking to.  I don't like the Sonar mixer at all but love the Studio One mixer.  So sorry it is not the best mixer in the world!  Mixbus mixer is also pretty cool too.