I think you hit the point, the hobbiest is the majority user for cubase and it makes sense to give them 2nd rate SB original Vst instruments bundled with cloud and the latest trends, because this is a for profit business and I get that, however that didn’t Impact Cubase until we got to 7 in my opinion when the mixer was overhauled, changed , and since then so many bugs and issues like I have never seen in ten years of using Cubase. Exasurbated with 8, it’s an all time low right now for reliability. Just look at the threads.
There is a reason pro tools HD is the professional standard, however it’s to expensive for me to get the 24 stereo input I need, I don’t do post, I compose for indie films, and hand off stems to post house, and I like the midi functionality, and the fonts are very easy to read ( compared to digital performer ) so here I stay on 8.10 because 8.30 won’t work on my new i7 PC. I decided not to get 8.5 based on the bugs reported.
I would like to see Cubase and nuendo become one platform , call it Cubendo 10, like pro tools , first build ONE daw framework that is solid , stable, and works , and charge for add ons that people can choose how to spend their money with post production being the pro version. ( add ons could be vsts, cloud, video, add on post tools, add on composer tools ) for example. Yes I am dreaming away, dream dream dream, repeat after me …