Send them an e-mail. Maybe they will make you one?

hellogoodbuy - sounds like you're leaning toward LASS.  I wanted to mention that I originally had GPO and converted to EWSO Gold.  After a bunch of research it ended up to be the best decision for me.  For only a couple hundred bucks (taking advantage of one of their sales) I have a Pro Orchestral package (not just strings) and was able to convert all my projects from GPO to EWSO.  What drew me to EW was that they have a huge selection of products (I also bought Solo Strings which sounds great).  Piano's, Guitars, etc.  And the fact that I could try them out inexpensively with EWSO, with a complete upgrade path to other more advanced packages.  Some day I'll will be upgrading to the Hollywood series.  It's not just Hollywood Strings, but Brass, Woodwinds, etc.

Play got a bad rap early on.  I bought EWSO in December and haven't experienced a single bug.  It is easy to use.  They are only on version 3 so I expect the software to get better and better.  They had specific reasons to go away from Kontact, where Kontact was holding them back on certain things.

The other thing EW has gotten a bad rap about was Customer Service.  This must also be something they have improved on.  They have been excellent to me and VERY quick to respond to any questions.  They have a very sophisticated support ticketing program.  You can view all history of any ticket at any time.  The company - AT THIS TIME - has their act together.

Also, their Forum is very active and is very useful for support questions.

Hollywood Strings is a great library - the samples are huge.  You almost need to go SSD to avoid those long load times.  But the cost of SSD's is coming down fast.  SSD's will make that load time less of an issue.

Thx for the info, guitartrek. But well, yeah.... play indeed got a bad rap... It's hard to find something positive about it! ;) I will give it another consideration though.

I'm going to briefly recount my recent experience with SoundsOnline - East West...

I have owned East West Symphonic Orchestra Silver since it originally came out
under Native Instruments...YES...NI...I still own the NI version.

I recently decided to upgrade my NI Silver to the PLAY Silver..it was on sale
for half off....$49.50  so I took the plunge and ordered.

They charged my Credit Card the $49.50 and accepted the order.

I kept waiting for my product to ship/serial number...
After 2 days I contacted East West Customer Service.
They said there was a problem with my order, but that
they said they had it corrected and I would get my product.

Another 2 days goes by and I get an Email from East West
accounting telling me that they could not charge my Credit Card
for the $197.50 for Symphonic Orchestra Gold and that they could
not process my order and that I would get a refund of the $49.50!!

So I contacted them and stated....WHAT?  I didn't order Gold - I ordered
the Silver and THAT is WHY you charged me $49.50 in the first place!!!

I NEVER got a reply to that email...

A week later I got a refund on my CC...

NOT AN APOLOGY FOR SCREWING UP MY ORDER
NOT sending out my ORIGINAL ORDER....NOTHING...not a word...

ALL I got was a refund of the Original $49.50

They'll never get a penny from me again....

If they can't deal with a VERY SIMPLE order...and, at the very least
APOLOGIZE for THEIR mistake, then I most certainly don't want
to deal with them on something that may be complicated...especially with
their " Sorry...even though we screwed up, you're just SH*T out of luck" attitude...

Never buy anything from them again....EVER!

I read all the comments as I'm interested in the subject.

Great information, examples and helpful information.

While it's off the OP topic I just wored the EWSO Complete.  I could not resist the 50% off sale they are having.

Looks like I get my 1st iLok plugin woohoo!.

Really appriciate everyones input even a negative review can give me things to watch for.

cclarry - I have heard EW horror stories like that.  That sucks.  Apologies and remorse don't seem to be a hallmark of EW customer service.  I will say that my communication with them was very "fact" based. 

I had issues too, like the liscense numbers that came with the original discs were invalid which delayed my installation.  There was no "I'm sorry for your inconvenience" in any of the communication.  However - That's were I got a taste of their ticketing system.  Everything was online like a blog and updatable by me - and they didn't miss a single communication.  Every post had a status - so they couldn't avoid a communication.  Very well organized.  That part of the company that gave me confidence.  Those issues with bad liscence numbers were very short lived.  It's a thing of the past.  The products work very well, and the forum is very good with people that are willing to help.

If I'm going to invest potentially thousands of dollars in a companies products I look at a number of things.  The most important to me is "staying power".  EW breadth of product is very impressive.  And they keep turning out more libraries.

Also - they made a huge investment in Play - which was very risky.  Kontact works great and it is totally stable now (but not in the beginning).  Play is relatively young.  But it is very stable for me.  The company must be healthy enough financially to make that kind of investment.

To me, the Hollywood series sounds fantastic.  And you have the choice to add Woodwinds, Brass and more, and they all use the same type of controller commands and Keyswitching, making the learning curve easier once you learn one of them. 

Their libraries are huge - big files.  And with Hard Drives, the long load times are annoying.  However - 1 Terrabyte SSD drives with incredible transfer rates are now on the market.  SATA is developing new technology to keep up with these transfer rates.  Current SSD drive controllers are now too slow, but that will change in a year.  And RAM is cheap.  So file size will not be an issue in the near future.

I have LASS lite 2.0. It's great for my needs since my level of string arrangements rarely if ever require me to take advantage of the divisi aspect of the full version. 
It's a little harsh sounding, but can be tamed with a little care at the mixing stage.
I either have, or have tried, the majority of the other options (EWQLSO, GPO, Cinematic strings, Symphobia,etc) and they have their strengths and weaknesses, as does LASS. But none of those other options are better than LASS, just different.
Basically you won't go wrong with LASS lite.

I've gotta say I've been going round in circles trying decide what strings to get on a budget. I'm now leaning towards either lass lite plus first chair or just lass lite and KH pop/rock strings as I signed up for group buy. I'm thinking the last combo would be the best all rounder. 
Decisions decisions..... Too much good stuff, not enough £££ 

Bibs