FL Studio 9 is released

[Meadows]

Yes it is.
More importantly, Image-Line finally released a physical simulator for strings (pianos, violins, guitars, anything) not unlike AAS String Studio, though not quite as featured.

As a combined result, their site seems to be down at the moment. Otherwise I would've linked too.
Who here likes Image-Line besides me?

[derFunkenstein]

Does it finally support staff editing? I know it has a piano roll view, but for me staff notation (combined with what Sonar calls "Step record") is an incredibly valuable time-saver.

Piano roll is good for note velocities - it's how I hand-tune my drum patterns to sound more realistic - and some other editing stuff, but for quickly getting stuff entered it's easier for me as a piano non-player to get stuff entered in staff mode. In fact, I've gotten to where unless it's something I'm going to print, I don't use Finale at all anymore.

If not for that (IMO) glaring oversight (which I'm sure no professional would use, but I'm hardly a pro), the $199 Producer Edition would have been chosen over Sonar when I went shopping.

Sakura looks interesting. The sound modeling synths always look interesting. And the price is right, compared to Applied Acoustics. I might demo it if one is made available, but my music budget is going to go towards a guitar for now, maybe next year if I find I'm missing a sound I just gotta have I'll look at VSTis but I dunno, I haven't even explored everything I have in Sonar.

[Meadows]

Sakura looks interesting. The sound modeling synths always look interesting.

It does look interesting, but I've tried the test release and it's quite difficult to get the sound you're really looking for. Frequency filters are odd and I'm not good friends with the way the program controls decay.
Also has bugs, some big ones too (for example, the synth itself doesn't respond at all to the FL-interface volume knob that should also be able to control it).

Might be why it's not available for purchase yet.

Not many presets, either. I didn't have problems like this with String Studio - that one had great sound too (maybe better even) and a truckload of useful guitar presets allowing me to instantly get what I was looking for while in the early stages of building tunes.