Man, I might be out of touch with what the Reason community wants (as a completely new user), but my point of view is this:
- Reason has always been (positively) different, i.e. the idea was to keep as much as possible in the box, using native devices: instruments, effects, sequencers & modulators,
- that approach afforded the unprecedented routing / patching system and incredible flexibility, that's almost unmatched (Bitwig and Live's M4L come close),
- also, that meant that music projects could be self-contained, small & easily portable: everyone had exactly the same setup,
- subsequent opening to recording audio & REs aimed to expand that, catch up with modern standards and let in some "fresh air" from 3rd parties, but still in a way that retained tight control over the whole environment in terms of stability, performance & quality,
Now, opening to the VSTs was inevitable, but it introduced whole world of problems we know from other DAWs: incompatibility issues, performance drops, crashes and freezes, etc. To make it worse, as a user or Bitwig (& previously Live) their existence in Reason's rack does nothing for me - I can do all the same (and actually more) things in Bitwig with VSTs that I can in Reason, since VSTs do not magically open themselves up because they're run in Reason. They'll never fit inside the Rack and give control options similar to Subtractor or Thor. They're still "foreign" objects shoehorned into Reason's world. But OK, I understand people wanted them, they got them...
What I was hoping for however (and still do), was that Propellerhead will focus on three areas:
- improving the GUI, the workflow, the performance - obviously,
- adding new native devices to the Rack, to capitalise on Reason's particular strengths I mentioned at the start - hence my surprise at how sparse Europa & Grain are at the back,
- further developing the RE format, to put more distance between REs (native & 3rd party) and VSTs in terms of flexibility & control, to strengthen Reason's unique qualities.
In short, I hoped Reason will stay Reason and addition of VSTs will only be a necessary evil. Now, when I read that they should drop releasing new native devices and stop investing in RE, I start to worry, because suddenly all of the distinctive advantages and charm of Reason as we know it disappear.
It'd become just another, regular DAW, with some legacy stuff that no one uses anymore.
And there are DAWs better than it at being "regular" DAWs.