My guess on the upgrade offer is that Cakewalk needs to keep some cash coming in. Most likely there are too many people, knowing that 5.0 is close, who are sitting back and waiting to upgrade, rather than investing in 4.X now.
If the offer were on Sonar Studio, instead of Producer, I would have gone for it. However, the extra $130.00 for surround sound and the Sonitus plugs are not worth it to me. But I would have definitely gone the $99 upgrade price for Studio if it had included the 5.0 upgrade.
As it is, I will now wait to see the feature set in 5.0 (and the upgrade price) and make my decision then.
Other than possibly the implementation of DXi's in Sonar (1.0??), my recording quality isn't any better now than it was in Pro Audio 9. The work flow is much improved, but the quality is about the same (except for my *hopefully* improved skills).
I'm thinking a good pre-amp might be the best investment for us at this point, or a couple of small dia. condensers for recording guitar.
We have a little bit of a war chest (we each throw in $5 or $10 each time we practice), and the only thing I felt comfortable spending money on rececently is a DVD burner to backup our projects
Anyway, how was the Brewer's game?
I have Friday off for a nice 4 day weekend.