And with Cubase SX coming out in Q2 2002, and merging all the best of Cubase's MIDI stuff with the Nuendo audio engine, looks to me like Steinberg is trying to go that route... Now, I just have to find out what they're going to do for their arithmetic processing. If that looks better, that means I'll probably go that route from my current VST32, even though it means I'll have to upgrade to W2000 or (shudder) XP.
I can always put the DAW on a subnet of its own, and turn off outgoing connectivity, I guess. I'd just as soon not have to use Microsoft's spyware, but it looks like this might force my hand...