jih64
But that is the second or third time I have heard someone say that they only get a handful of useful stuff out of the 33GB, I think that would make me a little unhappy, might give it a miss
I think it depends a lot on what you have already. What you get with ST3 is a solid collection of "bread and butter" sounds. If you have the full version of Kontakt, Independence Pro and Dimension Pro you have the ground reasonably well covered already. Add to that some third party Kontakt libraries the potential usefulness of ST3 diminishes.
For example its got some nice Pianos but they do not compare to a dedicated piano library. I do not think it likely I would choose the ST3 pianos over my Sampletekk collection or something like NI's Giant.
If you are starting out and want a reasonable collection of useable sounds in a easy to use package it is a good option. The addition of all the extra content will make it a lot more versatile. While old and lacking some features of a modern package Miroslav is still a very nice sounding orchestral library (I upgraded to ST3 so I could keep on using Miroslav).
Of course NI have extended their half price deal on Kontakt for a two days. If you act quickly you can get Kontakt for $200. The Kontakt factory library is probably on par with ST3 but you open up a world of third party content, some of it free and very low cost (and some of it very expensive). Kontakt's big strength is the available 3rd party content.