Nice post! Those were the wild west days 
. So many great folks who shared their knowledge so freely.
Its funny, i cant speak to the Nuendo/cubase differences but in general the level of issues today vs backwhen is like comparing fighting polio to a sniffle . I simply haven 't been able to justify upgrading from N5.5. It does the job. And in general SB is far more accessible than they used to be. It used to feel like a war back when relative gain adjustments didn’t work and the company was owned by Pinnacle.
I consider this a pretty peaceful time in DAW history lol.