Thanks for all the info. Brando, I mucho appreciato. :)
 
I was just reading some reviews on Cyclops as that seemed to me the most useful (I also don't do the wobble step.....more like the two step with a rocking twist :)).
 
Is the learning curve steep on this (for us preset pushers)? Would I need to read the manual? ....

I never read a manual in my life : ) (full disclosure - i don't ask for directions and get lost a lot too).
There's a ton of presets in Cyclop but they're not all useful (or useable, imo). Some are clearly sound effects and definitely not musical. But it's easy to start from something and tweak. The video i linked to above was actually very useful to me in helping me get how the various modulation parameters all meld together.  i don't watch a lot of how to videos either but that was very helpful.
Mesh - one thing i should have mentioned right off the top is - if you want something that's been around for awhile, wait for a sale. I bought Thesys, Artlliery and Turnado as Guitar Center no brainers for like $29 each or something. I paid full price for Effectrix and Cyclop, but would guess they also go on sale from time to time.

I've got a fair amount of SugarBytes stuff and it is indeed a good company.  But I'm afraid I have to agree with James on this one.  I didn't hear anything that sounded remotely interesting or engaging in the audio demos.

I have to agree with James and Yorolpal - the demos just didn't do it for me. I have a couple of Sugar Bytes stuff, and normally pretty good - WOW I use regularly.
Now James mentioned Tantra - absolutely brilliant - had it quite a few months and has become one of my go to tools - and I love Dmitry's synth, Diversion. 
http://dmitrysches.com/
Nigel
 

Pretty pretty pretty uninteresting.
But I do love their Egoist.

I too have to say the audio sounds in the videos does not impress me but that said most of the time he was using the INT preset just to show you the core features . The fact is Vsti hosting lets you bring any patch you want. The core features seem pretty useful to me . I'll probably snag this vst .
Effictrix imo is my Goto effect, turnado another one I swear about, wow is my favorite filter on the other hand . $99 to me seems like a great price .
I just recently received an offer for rapture pro for $150 on sale , and this is $99 , I know which one I'll be buying this week .

Sugar Bytes needs to learn from NI. NI makes stunning audio demos for their products that make you want to run not walk to buy them. They go too far IMO, they will throw their other products into the demos -- they tell you that they've done so, but then you're left trying to factor out the thing you're listening for. It's not really fair. 
 
Anyway, I'm surprised by all these comments. As mentioned, dude was using the farking init preset to demonstrate features of the synth, and features are completely NUTS! I'm overwhelmed right now cos I recently bought Komplete, but this will be my next synth purchase when the time comes.