Here’s my two cents also:
I bought Cubase back in the 90’s based on reviews that seemed to place it above other DAWs at the time. But I was just too busy to go through the learning curve and turned to my simple/easy to use onboard sequencer instead. Which I used for years to flesh out songwriting ideas.
4 years ago, someone gave me an iPad. I downloaded GarageBand and was instantly amazed at all of the computing power you could get for free. Except the drums sucked. And there is no midi out. And limited tacks. I quickly moved on to $10 Beatmaker 2. The reverb sucks. But more tracks, but still limited. Midi out, yay! So I could use Audiobus and other synth apps. Yay! This finally led me to buy Cubasis. The learning curve is not as steep as Cubase, but unlimited tracks! Automation! An easy to use and powerful sampler! So many features. And the best part is, that you can upload Cubasis projects into Cubase. So this led me back to Cubase. And that steep learning curve. I still find myself starting new song ideas on Cubasis because with my template, I can go from chorus idea to a functional demo in an hour. I’m not at that level with Cubase. But I don’t understand why I can have unlimited tracks in $50 Cubase and still have track imitations with $300 Cubase artist. And why was the awesome Cubasis sampler not in $100 Cubase Elements? It had a sampler, but it did not work the same as the one in Cubasis which I use in every song to manipulate samples quickly and easily. I agree that Steinberg should have a more simple, cheap computer based entry level program like Cubasis. I think Cubasis has just enough.
So, in short, I think my journey isn’t unique. I’ve seen videos where other musicians started on one DAW and switched to Cubase after they wanted more features or more power. Of course you aren’t going to switch from Cubase to Ableton or Logic anymore than you would switch from a guitar to something easier to play. Once you’ve gone through the learning curve of the more difficult instrument, you would not switch to something with less power. But that doesn’t mean serious musicians won’t switch from Ableton to Cubase if Cubase has features they want or need just as you might switch to Ableton if it had features you want or need. For me, I love the interchangeableness of Cubasis and Cubase that gives me the perfect balance of simplicity and power.
I actually had an engineer tell me to forget Cubase and just use Logic. Logic is definitely catering to a certain market. A lot of people in the local industry near me use it. They don’t need all of the features Cubase has and Logic has enough to get the job done. Not everyone appreciates advanced features. Or needs them. But Cubase Elements was almost useless to me because of the track limitations. I couldn’t do anything with it. Who cares about advanced features when you don’t even have enough tracks? Steinberg needs an inexpensive computer version of Cubasis with “just enough” features and unlimited tracks to attract people from this market. The ones that want more features will upgrade. Cubase Elements was cheaper, but still complicated and limited. They had the right idea but had the wrong product. It just came off as stingy to limit tracks to force you to upgrade. Why tracks? Why not features? I still don’t have enough tracks with Cubase Artist. This is no way to attract new users. They need to quit being stingy on track limitations on their entry level products that other DAWs don’t have.