Update - I bought Vienna Symphonic Orchestra Special Edition 1 last week and started using it yesterday. I've converted one project from EWSOgold to VSL. The sound quality is just as good (or better) than SOgold.
The Vienna Instruments software is really well thought out. You can go from very simple to very complex with their easy to learn Matrix. You can build your own set of articulations extremely fast. It is easy to learn after watching a couple of Paul's videos. They have presets of collections of instruments that you can use which are totally consistent with one another. Or you can build your own.
This program is totally integrated with Vienna Ensemble which is also really cool. It has a mixer where you can control panning and use any of your installed VST effects. Each of these programs - Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble are available in "pro" versions which have even more bells and whistles.
So far I'm very happy with VSL.