+1 to OP.
Basically there should be a rebalance between feature development and maintenance/bug fixing.
We must realize that maintenance must take the time, cost and resources it needs. A bit less time and resources spent on shiny new features, means well needed more time and resources spent on maintenance and fixing bugs and issues.
While new features are needed to sell new updates, and there are always room and need for some new stuff to add, Cubase is probably already the most feature rich DAW in the world. What’s really needed now is to get rid of that big backlog of unfixed old and new bugs and issues.
A high quality Pro software is not only strong feature wise, but is also strong regarding stability, reliability and without huge numbers of bugs and issues.
To have that, enough resources (time and man hours) need to be plowed into it. And since resources are limited, that means a bit less resources must be spent on developing new features. And that’s the price the customers will need to pay for this. The major updates will need to be a bit less extensive. That will free up some resources well needed for adding to the maintenance part of the work.
Also, there could be a focus for next version on the less resource demanding feature requests, smaller things like workflow enhancements asked for, and refine what’s already there, rather than many big new additions. Maybe unlock some things from Nuendo (e.g. AAF and Edit Mode)
It would be good if next release was delayed for some months to catch up with maintenance, but most likely the owner Yamaha is requiring the annual releases for financial reasons. Yes, there’s a business reality.
So ok, just rebalancing a bit to transfer some resources into maintenance, with the price of making the major updates a bit less extensive, would improve the situation. Fix as many bugs and issues in 8.5 as reasonably possible, with the cost of having version 9 a bit slimmer, and then do the same and clean out the rest of them in the cycle of version 9.
I do not think there is a reason to worry about that this would mean decreased sales. The latest major updates have been really major, and I use to wonder: how the heck did the programmers manage to put all that in? They must have very strong coffee at the Steinberg office!
Feature wise Cubase is already incredibly impressive. So a good update doesn’t need to be massive feature wise, just adequate. But that bug list needs to be polished off to have Cubase really strong. And that would, in the end, actually increase sales.
So make it strong. Polish it. Make it shine. Make it Pro.
All best,