Make sure you go to YouTube and see  about video tutorials. There should be a good amount. I know there are a lot of AIR tutorials at Production Expert with Russ Hughes who is an A list tuts guy. Groove3 also has some on Hybrid  and Loom. Production Experts is only $3.99 for a month and well worth it. Enjoy, you are AIR Heads now.
https://premium.production-expert.com/

Oh, what the heck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLqGUF3p2a4

Crucifixion? First on the right, second on the left.

The Xpand2 is still free from here
https://store.digitalriver.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=airmusic&id=QuickBuyCartPage
 
I just installed it yesterday and am blown away with the fact it was free. I spent a good hour playing with it and super impressed with the endless variety. Even the Wurly was good.
Couldn't figure out the multi channel thing but I found you really need to read their manuals first. I bought the Strike 2 drums for $43 a few weeks ago and I'm 100% converted over. Once you figure out the different interface it's more than an equal of AD2 and SD etc. And you can use your own samples if you don't like theirs. 
 
But the free give away of Xpand2 is a no brainier. You just need to join DJWORX. 
http://djworx.com/
 

Cactus Music
The Xpand2 is still free from here
https://store.digitalriver.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=airmusic&id=QuickBuyCartPage
 
I just installed it yesterday and am blown away with the fact it was free. I spent a good hour playing with it and super impressed with the endless variety. Even the Wurly was good.
Couldn't figure out the multi channel thing but I found you really need to read their manuals first. I bought the Strike 2 drums for $43 a few weeks ago and I'm 100% converted over. Once you figure out the different interface it's more than an equal of AD2 and SD etc. And you can use your own samples if you don't like theirs. 
 
But the free give away of Xpand2 is a no brainier. You just need to join DJWORX. 
http://djworx.com/
 

+1

Never used NI Complete.
 
Just bought the Air Complete Bundle for 70€ at Pluginboutique and it was an awesome deal for me. I was basically looking for the same "palette" as OP. But with my main focus on creating Minimal Dub lots of the pads and leads are sounding almost too fat. Well I guess you can always fix that with EQ and some tweaking.
 
All instruments perform very well regarding CPU load and latency, I can play anything in realtime while I got 5 other Air instruments playing in the background without noticing any real load on the CPU.
 
The Plugin Effects are great, sadly there's not too much documentation - e.g. I just watched a random youtube video showing some awesome predelay effects you can make with one of the Air FX plugs. I would never have figured that workflow by my self. So only 2 out of 5 stars for docs.
 
The sampler "Structure" looks and sounds a little dated, therefor you get loads of content. Still very usable but not the same league as Kontakt I guess. 
 
Transfuser and Strike are the most awesome tools for "idea sketching" I've ever seen - UI and workflow are a little complicated though. Tip: If you drag a midi-loop from strike onto your track, you have to set the Strike track midi channel to 15 to get it playing ok.
 
Hope that helps OP or anyone else.
 
 

occide
Never used NI Complete.
 
Just bought the Air Complete Bundle for 70€ at Pluginboutique and it was an awesome deal for me. I was basically looking for the same "palette" as OP. But with my main focus on creating Minimal Dub lots of the pads and leads are sounding almost too fat. Well I guess you can always fix that with EQ and some tweaking.

Just a thought here, but in most of the AIR instrument's presets, the on-board effects are switched on.  Just click them off and run them dry at first.  Then season to taste.
 
Better yet, instead of on-board synth effects, use you favorite channel or bus FX in your host app to sweeten them up as you mix.  The biggest offending preset FX is the reverb and delay.  They make the preset sound awesome by itself, but otherwise useless.  If you run both synth and host FX together, it can get messy!
 
Besides you probably have better FX available that you can use, than what the synth designer provided.  But at least the preset sound designer gave you an idea of what you can do with the sounds.  Dig a little deeper than the presets, and there is a lot of sound mangling possibilities in these synths. 

Just for completeness, that Pre-Reverb FX I was talking about: https://youtu.be/yabQ979SpN8?t=10m24s
 
@abacab thanks for the hint, this is it. Once the internal fx-section is off the sounds are much better to handle.