Did some more research and downloaded a ...uh..."evaluation" version of the basic Independence. This is what I'm leaning towards...
The $65 version (thanks cclarry) includes a basic library and the Independence FX vst. The fx dll has some run of the mill effects, compressor, flange, phase, limiter, some can sims, stereo delay, graphic eq and Origami (which is what I was after). Runs fine in Sonar as a vst.
Origami with the paid edition does indeed load external IR files on top of what comes with it. Question is if it is worth it. I have gigabyte libraries of impulse files that never get used and are in reality close to all being the same except for length.
The free HOF Origami has some fine IR's from Lexicon, Eventide and others and does about everything to showcase the niche need for Origami, that being the Elastique stretch of the IR's up and down to get some novel effects.
Went back to play Independence Free and gave up after a few minutes struggling to get the "root folder" recognized. In the wake of so much out there, deleted Independence Free and deleted the "evaluation" version of Inde Pro since I won't be paying for it.
Advice then is to go for the free HOF Origami reverb vst. Such a generous free gift from those guys.
Similar note, awhile back I was trying to understand the pre and post processing of IR's given the various approaches of the convolution devs.
Time stretch was an obvious plus, so what if you could go to the original IR and process the file first. Took a generic free cathedral file, spliced it together for length in Audition. Dropped the pitch using Elastique in Reaper and then sent it through a stereo flanger. The result was at least quite unique, considering where it came from.
Posted this on Swoopshare for anyone who wants to try it out. One trick pony for sure, but one hell of a synthetic spinnoff of a cathedral. Hope you guys like it. Link for download (about 1.25 MB):
http://www.swoopshare.com/file/6b7f2459611ec5ac042ece0bb00c19cc/mangled.wav.html John