Sorry - I meant it in the context of improved MXML only.

In my experience MXL import/export is a PITA.  I've always had to do quite a lot of fiddling around after import to get things right.  From my experience with Sibelius, Notion, Sonar and Cubase it really is not the solution.  Perhaps it could be implemented better and the experience could be improved.
 
IMO an acceptable workaround would be to have a notation program communicate with a DAW in the right ways:
1) the notation sends all MIDI out each channel - some already to this
2) the DAW reliably inputs the MIDI in real time - Sonar and Sibelius have been very problematic in this situation for me and Jonathan Loving who writes all the Sibelius Sound Sets.
3) Rewire works reliably and both notation app and DAW can be either Host or Slave - Sibelius has never rewired reliably for me with Sonar, Notion is rock solid rewired with Sonar.
 
If all these are met and you can set up all of your sounds in the DAW and just send MIDI from the notation appt to the DAW this would be workable solution for large orchestral works.  For pop songs with a horn or string section notation inside the DAW would be a lot better.  The problem, as I see, it is that apps like Sibelius have a lot of proprietary messages that may not translate over MIDI.  

vintagevibe
IMO an acceptable workaround would to have a notation program communicate with a DAW in the right ways:
1) the notation sends all MIDI out each channel - some already to this
2) the DAW reliably inputs the MIDI in real time - Sonar and Sibelius have been very problematic in this situation for me me and Jonathan Loving who write all the Sibelius Sound Sets.
3) Rewire works reliably and both notation app and DAW can be either Host or Slave - Sibelius has never rewired reliably for me with Sonar, Notion is rock solid rewired with Sonar.

An effective solution will probably have to use a combination of methods, and therefore will not come overnight.  It might be a few years, even if it were a high priority.  To me, what is important is to recognize that this is a potentially important area of technology convergence on the future, and I think Noel said as much. I do hope this can lead to a growing recognition of the importance of having a good notation solution that is not necessarily limited to notation views within the Sonar program.
 
Regarding the richness/effectiveness of MusicXML, I am sure this varies widely.  Success of the tool depends on how well it is implemented on BOTH ENDS.  I did have an experience with it a couple of months ago.  I worked on a project in cooperation with a professional symphony orchestra.  For this project they gave me a template that had the score layout exactly as they wanted it.  This template was in Finale 2012 and had been heavily modified by the orchestra librarian staff over the years.
 
I used Finale 2014 for my project, as it was acceptable for the final product to be delivered as PDFs,  All proceeded rather smoothly, but there came a point when the file became really hosed somehow.  As I recall, playback was really messed up and I couldn't seem to fix it.  I never had that problem on the projects I created from scratch, so I assumed these problems were inherited from this particular template.
 
I could have started with a whole new score and dragged all the material from the bad file to the new file.  Instead, I decided to try saving it as MusicXML and then importing it freshly.  That worked almost perfectly.  Almost all of the layout items were preserved.  As I recall, the only real problem was that the lyrics got turned into text, so I had to retype the lyrics, but otherwise, the freshly imported score was just fine.  All my special articulations and expressions came through.  I was surprised at how well this worked actually.
 
My point is there is nothing wrong with the MusicXML standard per se.  If there are problems, they lie in the implementations done by various vendors.  But for the purposes if importing into a DAW, I really don't think that would be a big problem. You would really just be looking to import the score structure (what instruments are on each staff), tempo alterations, meter changes, key changes, etc.  I'd want the notes themselves to be imported from MIDI because that will be the most realistic playback in the DAW, if the notation program is doing any interpretation of slurs, articulations, dynamics and special effect like trills and grace notes.
 

I too have been disappointed in such a great DAW to create music and score parts for a studio orchestra or even just vocals for a church choir and come up short on a good notation scored product. However, in the 80's when I used cakewalk on my Atari ST1040 and exported the file to Finale, I would edit it there and print out on a dot matrix printer. Finale was not as expensive then, but you don't have to spend $600 for the full version that it is going for now. I purchased Finale Print Music (after free month trial versions from make music to decide between print music $120 and songwriter $50.) Importing MusicXML files from Sonar is easy and the print and editing works well if you have a background in scoring. I work along side top notch software engineers every day and know the expense, time, and un-plagiarized coding required to go into a project. Much dismay to my wish for better notation, Cakewalk is giving us the best bang for the bucks considering all the free stuff we get. Kudos to Cakewalk!

Anderton
Don't people do that already with Notion or some other program?

 
I sure do...

swamptooth

Anderton
Don't people do that already with Notion or some other program?

 
I sure do...

You don't do it inside Sonar.

Exactly - or I'd like to know how- (or why given current limitations via rewire)

Here is an interesting video showing how to link StudioOne and Notion with Rewire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Kv0FEJWuA
 
That is interesting.  Rewire support would at least give us better mixing capability from the notation program.  Notion seems to have pretty good Rewire support built in.  I think Sibelius has some Rewire support.  Finale does not, but some people do this using Bidule.
 
Rewire works with WAV tracks, not MIDI, as I understand it.  So in the Notion example, you could bring each of your staves across to a SONAR track, but it would be using the synthesizers in Notion.
 
I am really looking for an easier way to get all the MIDI from Finale into Sonar, where it is easier to edit.  I have a problem with an arrangement I'm doing right now where I have the brass playing figures that have scoops and falls.  the Finale "Human playback" just doesn't sound right.  It does the fall, but you don't hear the written note before the fall starts, they way a live musician would play that.  That is the sort of thing I'd like to touch up in Sonar before releasing the final version.  I don't think Rewire would help with that.
 

vintagevibe

swamptooth

Anderton
Don't people do that already with Notion or some other program?

 
I sure do...

You don't do it inside Sonar.

Well i do it inside sonar as well, mostly for building textures and chord structures. If I need easy access to articulations I rewire Sibelius.

swamptooth
Well i do it inside sonar as well, mostly for building textures and chord structures. If I need easy access to articulations I rewire Sibelius.

How does that work?  You can't edit the MIDI in SONAR at that point, right?  When you say you access articulations, are you saying you go into Sibelius and change the articulations there?