I have owned a few home studio versions over the years and just this weekend discovered that Home Studio doesn't support over 48k sampling rates on my new Scarlett 18i8.  I then discovered the fate of Cakewalk while troubleshooting...
 
A weekend of research later I discovered that Cubase will do what I want and it make sense to me (can't stand any of the other DAWs I tried, though REAPER was decent.)  Anyway, is it a stupid idea to instead of buying Cubase to buy Sonar Pro from the website?  Will Bandlab get the $$?  Will I get support for it and updates?

You can't buy Sonar from the website, the store is closed.
 
in 3-5 weeks BandLab will announce the product plan and indicate when it's available.

Thanks for pointing that out.  I saw the sale page but hadn't clicked on purchasing options, which show the message about the changes.

Yeah it's not clear as it asks you if you want to buy, then gives the announcement of closure

Have you tried Studio One? You can download a trial and give it a shot.
I didn't care for it at first but I'm getting used to it... It's just different, and Craig anderton is making a tips section for it.

The last couple of months have been real weird, still is. No e-mail notifications, just words of the jungle. 
Will be interesting in retrospect to read the story of how things actually went down. I'm still sorry for the people at customer service, which in my opinion did an excellent job. Especially "Sahra" whom was very helpful with legacy stuff. I hope a new place can be found for them in the future organization. 

I wish I could give a fair assessment of what is to come but I cant.
I can only say that I am happy with Sonar right now and im not sure if that version is going to change much, except hopefully get better.
 
As Kam said, the next 5-6 weeks will tell what the next steps are.
Personally, im staying put because im still using Sonar right now and im curious for what's in store.

dannyjmusic
Have you tried Studio One? You can download a trial and give it a shot.
I didn't care for it at first but I'm getting used to it... It's just different, and Craig anderton is making a tips section for it.

I've have SO Pro for a number of years myself, and it is a excellent program. However I don't see it helpful towards Cakewalks future, now that a solution is in sight, to promote SO on this forum. There is a lot to be said about Presonus, their forum sucks ... as well as some of their hardware. I've had the VLS1818 experience.

iRelevant

dannyjmusic
Have you tried Studio One? You can download a trial and give it a shot.
I didn't care for it at first but I'm getting used to it... It's just different, and Craig anderton is making a tips section for it.

I've have SO Pro for a number of years myself, and it is a excellent program. However I don't see it helpful towards Cakewalks future, now that a solution is in sight, to promote SO on this forum. There is a lot to be said about Presonus, their forum sucks ... as well as some of their hardware. I've had the VLS1818 experience.

I bought Studio one when the news of Cakewalk's demise was first released.
Ive used it a few times but I really don't like it. That's not to say its a bad DAW. It actually has some very cool features. Im just used to Sonar and its going to take some time to get used to it.
I just prefer using Sonar because it fits my needs and more importantly.. I have years of experience working with it. Sometimes familiarity goes a long way.

I ended up going with Cubase Elements.  I tried Studio One, REAPER, FL Studio, Ableton Live, and numerous others.  Cubase ended up being the least annoying of the bunch.  I also wanted to continue to have a score editor.
 
I'll miss Sonar but I needed something immediately.  But only being $100 into Cubase, there's the chance I'll come back to Cakewalk if things look promising in the future.