I've been a Cakewalk user since Pro Audio 6 circa 1989 so had to think long and hard about which DAW I would migrate/defect to in light of recent developments (or lack of, moving forward...) Reaper, Cubase, Mixcraft, Podium, Fruity Loops, Ableton Live and Bitwig all have their strengths and weaknesses certainly but it's Studio One which strikes me as the one DAW closest in lineage, feel and methodology to SONAR. The bundled instruments in S1 are not on a par with SPLAT but they do have a dedicated sampler (Presence XT) which ships with > 13 gig of high quality sounds which are easily on a par with Kontakt's factory content. Most of the functionality is drag and drop including a very intuitive groove quantise window for MIDI and AUDIO which is a joy to use. Despite what many in these forums have stated to the contrary, I feel that S1's MIDI editing capabilities match those of SONAR (or are at least sufficient for my MIDI oriented needs, despite their being no MIDI event list view). It even has a 'Transform' tool and multi-track PRV which are spookily similar to those found in SONAR. On the down side, there is nothing to match the console emulation and aesthetic delights of the Cakewalk Pro Channels/Console view alas. However, all that said, the real game changer for me is the dual buffer settings that Presonus allow you to set up on installation. I don't know the technicalities behind this approach but long story short, you ramp up buffer size for mixing and ramp down for recording and it's done automatically 'under the hood' via hardware low latency monitoring (if your sound card supports it) or software low latency monitoring, otherwise. Unlike SONAR, I can have very large projects open with loads of tracks, FX, VSTs and tracks with no crackling or popping or prohibitive latency when either recording or mixing. Studio One strikes me as the DAW that Cakewalk were never quite able to bring to fruition.

For my test I was given a multi track session recorded by Roland here in Australia.  They hired an excellent engineer and the raw tracks sound beautiful.  It is a lesson in mic placement and also musicianship as well.  All you have to do push the faders up and you a get a beautiful sound.  With no plugins present.  It can be done.
 
I used only whole numbers on fader settings e.g. -7 db or -11 db etc.. I panned only LCR and ensured that in the C position the same pan law applied e.g. C=-3dB.  Check each DAW an ensure no processing of any kind on its stereo master buss.  I rendered out mixes from all 4 DAW's and then a listening test was conducted.  No idea which DAW was being presented in the speakers and also no idea when the switching took place either.  I got perfect nulls from any two meaning incredibly low level of any artefacts present.  This type of experiment requires precision detail in setting up each mix.  There is room for error.  As soon as someone hears not a perfect null it is like they jump on the situation and say hey Studio One sounds terrible.  It does not.  It sounds like a digital recording system, excellent.
 
VST"s are all fine with Studio One.  I have many.  It is matter of keeping your DLL files in one place and letting Studio One know the locations.  You do a complete scan on start up and it will find everything.  Then you uncheck that option so it does not scan on further start ups. Hence much faster start up time. I have both VST 2 and VST 3 versions. In some cases there are only VST 2 versions. They all work fine together.  In fact it is one of the easiest DAW's that works well with plugin installs.  With any change of DAW there is going to be some fiddling around getting your plugins to work inside your new DAW.  That is given. 
 
The whole buffer thing is now is amazing.  With thunderbolt interfaces working on a Mac I an getting like 1.5 mS input latency.  I am also seeing 16 sample buffer options now with some interfaces.  To be able to control input and output latencies is excellent.  It can manage two different interfaces as well on a Mac for input and output signal flow.  There are new low latency monitoring modes now as well.  It pays to read up on all that stuff with those great tutorials on how that all works.  Studio One with its own Quantum interface has the lowest latency on the planet at present I think.