Reason 9 is rather tasty

As one who beta tested 9 it's like a .5 release.  Workflow is very primitive to what every DAW does.  REs are an over priced monopoly. 

Starise
I'll check that out. I usually don't taste my software...which part did you taste? :)
 
Maybe Reason have added scratch and smell to their boxes to get a larger following.
 
I'm going to be serious now...I have a few friends who absolutely love it. If you use the beats and arpegiators it can make a decent pop song right on the fly excluding vocals. There's enough in the box to keep you interested from what I gather..the rest is...er...icing on the cake?

   Well you have definitely got wind from the fan boys.  Try the demo but those things you mentioned can be done in any DAW and quicker.  Arpeggiator is a separate effect.  Most soft synths have that.  Let's say you have this nice arpeggiated midi file and you want to drag it on to a track and audition it with other synths. You can't.  In Sonar and every DAW not named Reason I can't drop it on a track and switch instruments and on the fly.
  While their upgrade price is reasonable, if you are not a user I couldn't think of another way to waste $399 on a lackluster but unique DAW.  I've had it since version 4.   In 8 you couldn't audition synth patches anymore.
 
  It probably does get is good review comparing to R8 but comparing it to other DAWs doesn't take much. Besides would that website give a negative review? Don't think so.
 
  With all of the competition out there I'd be surprised if it exists in 10 years.  They ditched their forum and now there is a disconnect between end user.  I would say that Sonar has become more popular because the people involved are here.  In some ways I liked the boxed in limitations. It's also the most stable DAW out there. 
 
  Try the demo but I wouldn't waste $399 on it.  I'm going to wait for an upgrade bargain.
 
 
 

I stopped buying Reason at 6.5. I felt really insulted and conned into buying it when they were taking payments for preorders pushing the idea of REs. Then it got released and the prices of REs was off the wall AND they didn't include the VST versions of plugins that had them which is a huge no-no in my book. If it's available in another format, you get that format as well.
 
Overall, the development of Reason has gone downhill. Shame because it was my favourite modular system to use for a while in the early 2k's but they started trying to make Reason something it wasn't and now it's a huge cluster with insults for upgrades. This is probably the biggest upgrade they've done in a long time and it's not that spectacular. If they'd have focused on new racks and making current racks better (when is the last time Subtractor got an update?) rather than trying to make it a DAW that does everything badly, they'd still have a solid software.
 
They don't take criticism well either. People were pissed about the Reason 6.5/7 upgrades so their response was to shut their forums down. Bad form, Prop.