Am I missing some new functionality or workflow enhancements? Is it less buggy?
I'm usually an early upgrader and always buy full upgrade pkg. w/Sonar
but frankly I'm kind of nonplussed.
 
Not trolling, I love Sonar, just seems like  dim pro and rapture combined w/slightly better GUI and
apparently, after reading some posts possibly a resource hog.
 
Mel
P.S. just don't shoot me in the face.

I didn't jump at it myself. I purchased both the other synths and have a bunch of 3rd party stuff so I'm not really looking for more. I'll keep an eye on it, perhaps some killer libraries will be developed over time.

So far, I think it shows great promise as what it was evidently intended as - an all-rounder, fire-this-up-first-and-it-will-likely-get-you-going-quickly kind of synth with a big library and a nicely designed interface that lets you use it how you want to - browsing presets, making quick tweaks and adjustments or going full deep dive. But it's held back from that, for me at least (and apparently others) by taking way, way too long to start up in the first place, and thus any project I use it in will take that long to load.
 
So since I was an early adopter on this one - I chose it over jumping on the intro price for Orbit, which I kind of regret now as I think I'd be getting more use out of the latter - I'm sure hoping they get that sorted out with a fix fairly quickly. The load time issue is pretty much a showstopper for me, and it's too bad as there is in fact a lot to like in there. But it needs some spit and polish for sure. 

I didn't really get on with Rapture, and wasn't that fussed about Dim Pro. I trying to learn them I thought I'd be better of focusing on one. Pulling up banks from Dim Pro in Rapture compounded this thought process and I ditched both.
 
I approve of the amalgamation and and with the intro price I thought I'd be kicking myself if I later went back to using it's predecessors, and I'm also waiting for FabFilter's twin to go on sale. I like a clavinet, not like I like rhodes, but I like em, and don't have a good source. Seeing that bundled in a full pack, was enough to make me go for it.
 
I'm glad I did, and quickly got over hurdles that I would have given up on before. I'm not that familiar as I said with the original, I think I never found it that intuitive. I don't really know what is so different, but I am finding it intuitive. Didn't take me long to get a patch up that responded nicely to my Midi sax. I'm not impressed with the Clavinet Programs, but the SFZ files for them seem good, and it's easy to get them going in a new program. I'm glad it's part of my arsenal (my other arsenal that is), and that I went for it. 
 
If you have the money, but can wait to use it, I'd invest and leave on your account until some of the issues are sorted out

Kamikaze, does it start up relatively quickly for you, or take a mysteriously long time to load?

BY start up do you mean, open a blank Rapture Pro session or one with something in it.
I just tested on another thread because I'm not having much issue. A blank Rapture Pro, less than 2 seconds. Loading in a 1945MB program took a further 10 seconds off a standard 5400rpm laptop harddrive.

Hey, thanks. Saw your similar post and replied in another thread. I guess we don't need two saying the same things... maybe this one can be more about features and general worthwhile-ness or lack thereof. Again, with the exception of this issue it seems like a solid synth with lots of potential!

OldTimerNewComer
 
P.S. just don't shoot me in the face.

"Not in the face!"
https://youtu.be/w9B_9YeVhsw?t=1m34s

RP has some issues, and Cakewalk is more than aware of them. If you're going from Rapture to Rapture Pro there's much less difference than going from Dimension Pro to Rapture Pro.
 
Rapture and Dim Pro were getting long in the tooth. I've had stability issues with Dimension Pro and I expect that at this point, they won't get fixed because they're too random. It looks to me like there were five main goals with RP:
 
1. Not have the artificial division between the two instruments.
2. Update to a more modern code base.
3. Not obsolete existing expansion packs so people could do everything with RP they did with Rapture and DP.
4. Make it easier to use in live performance, or for "live in the studio" fans
5. Provide a modern platform for future content.
 
Those all make sense, and I suspect when Cakewalk gets the tech issues sorted out, RP will be a "workhorse" kind of synth. I will say that playing with it has reminded me just how much good content there is between Rapture and Dim Pro.
 
The biggest roadblock may turn out to be finding out why performance varies so much according to different people. Some say it loads really fast, some say it's painfully slow. BobF's comment about how he sped up load times dramatically by excluding the content from his virus scanner goes to show that we'll probably have to figure out a new repertoire of system dos and don'ts for RP, just as we have to for SONAR and other Windows programs.

It was released too early. It probably needs another 3 months of service packs and then it will kick ass.