I don't think anyone is saying ProTools is the "only" Pro rig. It's just the Industry Standard, and assumed that every studio
should have it or else they're not a real studio. I believe that much is not bunk, but a farce.
If I were totally schooled on PT, I probably would love it just as much, but I agree with others who have remarked that PT is typically behind on supporting the latest native hardware and OS (Windows, mostly) versions. Personally, I think the total abandonment of RTAS in light of AAX, another proprietary protocol is also a farce, and quite frankly, anyone who uses plug-ins, such as Waves, finance such firms to develop AAX versions of their plug-ins. So, my WUP $$ and purchase new Waves plug-ins partially went to building AAX versions of Waves plug-ins vs. going solely to Support or developing new, and innovative plug-ins. PT has enough of a stranglehold on the industry that plug-in makers feel the need to develop the next enforced trend of PT.
Although I've been told that AAX has drastically improved how plug-ins work within the PT framework, there's still, in my mind, no excuse for not opening PT up to VST2/3. I wouldn't have a problem with other DAW's supporting AAX, but as you can see, Avid has a tendency to simply abandon a protocol, such as RTAS with the most crude and baffling backward-support of RTAS (which is: Install PT10).
At least Sonar is willing to embrace newer plug-in versions with backward compatibility. That was a sell for me away from PT, not to mention PT is definitely not intuitive. I need training or manuals to use PT.