"The "What's the best?" Paradox"
 
...I guess the closest I can get to an accurate description of what I am asking is a "music policy" question.
Many of the posts I read on the Sonar forum include statements of preference regarding
products offered by Sonar, another DAW provider or 3rd party software developer similar to:
 
1."I think "X" is better than "Y" for function "Z"".
 
2."I don't really care for "X", I use "Y" for function "Z"" within the SAME parent program(e.g. Sonar).
 
I submit that once, for example a Drum Sampler's in my hands, it's "Mel's Drumkit"- no longer AD2 or Session Drums or Steven Slate, because I tweak the hell out of everything I get to try for a unique sound.
Ultimately that ability is what we are being sold; there is only one Steven Slate.
 
And I don't see brand names when I'm working.
 
In effect,
it's what I got
   to do the thing I'm doin'
     the best I can right now.
 
How good AD2 is, or how any other softsynth/FX/etc. sounds is completely up to the user; unless you only use stock sounds straight outta the box.
 
This opinion is tempered by the fact that the first song I ever sold(certified gold)
was a 15 ips "sound on sound" reel to reel, the "drums" were a ghetto bbQ grill,
with and without a towel,
A bass with three 2 year old strings...
 
and "bouncing" was done with razor blades.
 
Looking forward to any thoughts/opinions/tips.
 
Peace.
Mel

I agree that a real musician will make music if all they have is a rubber band. But sometimes we have "chemistry" with a particular device or program; they just "feel" right...the same as there are certain guitars that play smooth as butter, while others don't have the same ease of playing. 

 
For example the first time I tried Rapture, I fell in love with it...all those step-sequenced possibilities and modulations! But there are way more z3ta+ 2 users, which doesn't float my boat the same way Rapture does. So is Rapture better? No, I just find it suits what I want to do better.
 
Ultimately, yes, we do make instruments our own when we bend them into sonic pretzels. But the raw materials we have to work with often predict the kind of pretzels we can make.

It is definitely about the journey and making the best with what is at hand. Everything makes noise and therefore has the possibility of being turned into music (and many have posited that the noise of life is the purest form of music).
 
However... an elastic band stretched between two nails on a broomstick and a mic pointing at them likely aren't going to be as good as an ESP going through a Rectifier to lay down some metal tracks.
 
Conversely that guitar through that amp won't sound as good as that mic'd rubber band on a stick if I'm trying to capture the sound of a rubber band on a stick.
 
Then of course there is useability and versatility of the tools. I'll probably be able to get more range out of the guit and amp than that ole elastic band even using them for stuff that they may not have been designed to do.
 
To sum up...
 
Meh... whatever works.

The answer to "what's the best....?" is always whatever works for you.  i get annoyed when people insist Sonar "(or any other product) "cannot do  [insert task or genre]".  I work in a studio part time where many have never heard of Sonar, but ever since i took an artist's songs home to mix and it came out sounding cleaner and more polished than anything else mixed in the studio, I have been flooded with requests to mix other artists tracks at home too from the same people who thought Sonar was not good for their genre of music.
 
Being that i work with a lot of genres and mix in Logic and Sonar, I see daily examples of your question ending up being my answer.  I concede it is obvious that if one were making something like EDM or Hip-Hop with just stock plug-ins in a DAW the instant gratification factor may be less with Sonar, but i don't see that as a case of "best" but a tradeoff and a challenge in some cases. before i got geist for drums, I figured out plenty of workarounds for using SD3 that helped me in the long run .

Why did I just say pretty much the exact same thing Craig did?
 
...
 
I think it's dinner time.
 

I happen to be aq big fan of mic'ed rubber bands

dubdisciple
I happen to be aq big fan of mic'ed rubber bands

That's what everyone says my Alembic Series I Bass sounds like.

Vintage footage of the CHC performing live....
 

 
 
PS: I dig your bass tone, Baps.

It's a reasoning error - "best" implies clear criteria for evaluation and/or "only one right answer" and those properties often don't apply.

As you say, it is astonishing how much you can customize/program/deasign sounds in various plugins. So if someone is saying I like the smallsmokeyroominanatticunderthepoplartreeinhoboken setting that comes supplied with fabulouslyperfectconvolutionreverb V2.0.30.7, you know what he is talking about. When someone says I like the GrabYouByTheButt synth from Mellowerthanthou he is probably saying he finds it easy to use and likes most of the "presets." If he takes the trouble to program his own voices, then he probably means he finds it easy to program or that he finds the parameters available to him to program will allow him to produce the voices he wants. By implication you (OP) are saying most such A is better than B comments are uselessly ambiguous and opinionated. TRUE