Hi Scott. This is something we discussed briefly not long ago - about the need for companies to upgrade software but not necessarily the user to. I'll likely upgrade to Sonar 3 as soon as I see the need but for now I'm really comfy and functional with 2.2 and unless my needs change I don't need 3. Cakewalk made a plug-in program for 2.2 so that it will accept VST instruments. I have it but haven't used it much - I'm not a big VST user actually. I also find that Sound Forge gives me all of the Mastering functions that the Producer version of Sonar 3 seems to offer, or again at least as many functions as I need (I did upgrade to Sound Forge 7 recently).

I am making myself a real resolution for the coming year: to focus more on creating new music. I'm not sure I'd ever master what all music gear I now have. I'm always finding a new way to use Reason for example - it seems to have limitless songwriting possibilities. And I'm very interested in the potential of the new Vocaloids "soft-singers" that Yamaha is developing... but I've set my sights on making a new album or two this year that I can be proud of using the tools at hand.