Wecome Jay!
It's a great forum with a lot of interesting helpful members.
I've been interested in several EastWest products but the main stumbling block is that I refuse to use iLok. It's so 70s! When I was researching DAWS, it boiled down to Cubase and Sonar. I spent a month on each program and they both seemed similiar in features. When I realized that Cubase required a Dongle, I dumped it.
At any rate, best of luck to you!
Walt