Drew
My reasons are complex and personal: philosophical, political, religious -- but ultimately practical.
I've been doing multi-track DAW work on a Windows machine since '96, when MS added the multi-channel audio layer to Win95. That's a
lot of Cakewalk project files.
And then I've been collecting DirectX effects plug-ins since not long after that... some came with programs, some I DL'd for free (legit)and a few I bought. (The Timeworks 64-bit EQ and compression from
the Sonar 2XL pkg are my current toys.)
And now I have a small collection of soft synths, too, though I'm waiting 'til I build my next machine in a few months to really play with them. My old P3-500 is well-oiled but there's only so much heavy lifting a machine of its vintage can do.
[You know, I tried a couple of times just now to address the less tangible and practical aspects of your question... but it's 3 a.m. my time, well, your time, too, and I fear I'm growing a trifle discursive -- perhaps, even, a bit digressive.]