Shame on some of you

I've been on both sides of this kind of situation and definitely agree.  As long as the software doesn't have a timebomb in it then that's that.
 
Anything more Cakewalk can do, great, but frankly when products / companies are shutdown all bets are off.   
 
Frankly, when I saw the "lifetime updates" offer I thought one thing: this is a bad sign for the future of Cakewalk.

Well... Cakewalk has failed. And I mean the group of people which was involved. That has happened before Gibson, it is still possible to fine Cakewalk financial status at the time of Roland -> Gibson transition. It has just continued under Gibson, with logical consequences. The failure was not in the sound quality domain, but in marketing. And in programming as well.
 
The chronology of failures:
* introduction of X. They have changed the look, but they have not adopted the engine. Till now. From all "halls" it is possible to see Sonar 6-8 things which was incorrectly attached to the new style. All new features introduced was (and still are) not aware or incompatible with many core basics. That has triggered huge set of "glitches", in graphics, in MIDI. I guess that was the reason why some users was not happy with X1.
* introduction of ProChannel. Nice idea, but "workaround on workaround" implementation. It was designed to replace Filters one to one, but it has grown into second FX bin. But it was left inside Filter, where it does not fit. And so got all set of strange glitches.
* the consequence was dropping the price, packing good but aging own plug-ins, so forcing packing 3d party plug-ins to compensate the aging. At some point it was clear that all that sub-licensed products consume most of money they get. There was a rumor that most money come from the "low end" versions, which had in-house components only. But is it possible to support serious huge program from the price of once cheap VST plug-in?
* at X3, many things which could be hotfixed was hotfixed. So they had a stable version, with modern look, archaic engine, a set of nice "vintage" plug-ins and... no money.
 
At that point, it could be a good time to re-think the strategy. From what we could observe and we was told: money comes from entry level products, X3 is rather stable and good as what it is. So logical: finally bring the engine up-to-date, including MIDI (VST), IO assignments, score, Matrix View, work on troubleshooting for audio equipment and VST crashes, merge ProChannel with FX bin and start selling modules one by one, to all users. So make MC/Sonar very attractive for new-comers, which prefer to see everything modern and work with pad played music, existing users will also for sure happy to experience changes in the engine and upgrade immediately.
 
* but instead... face lifted X3, DrumReplaces/VocalSync, packed with extra AD2 set. I mean not a "pack" which is useful for everyone. But not only that...
* MARKETING. I will not publish numbers, but some people like me have paid for 2x Platinum upgrades + RapturePro (full version) + GS2 (full version) much less then most of you have paid for one yearly update... PMs to CW, questions... the reply was: that is right.
* monthly updates, pay for the NEXT year... can ONE team update the engine under such conditions? No. It can not. So that was the clear sign of the end, till they change that, they could! But:
* "lifetime" (full stop of money flow at the end of this year, yes THIS year, we have paid for it previous summer), epic fail with Mac, Momentum ("small" team has decided to make something completely unrelated to anything else?)
 
Please do not get me wrong, I wish Cakewalk employers all the best. They are nice and knowledgeable people. And I also think that mother companies (Roland, Gibson) could HELP them, with marketing, with strategy, etc. instead of dropping the project.
 
But I understand people which blame EVERYONE. Since they are somehow right. Do you remember statements: "Cakewalk exists 29 years, Gibson even longer, why you think something is wrong?". Cakewalk has failed, and Cakewalk are people. We all fail periodically, sometimes with consequences sometimes not. That does not make us "bad", but there are people which have hoped we will not fail, and it is fair to let them claim the fact.
 

No reason for closing required....   Play nice, go make some music.