davidicus wrote:[*] support seems down to a skeleton crew--hardly even paying attention
They were recently on vacation.
davidicus wrote:[*] maybe it's just me, but the new apps focus doesn't seem to be a money factory
You're right. They're free!
davidicus wrote:[*] the new apps focus seems to have diluted their efforts, like last ditch attempts to survive
Nope. See Reason 8.3. And see the last point above—they're free. The mobile apps and Discover (also free) are in place to draw more attention to Reason
davidicus wrote:[*] they've scaled back their web operations substantially--note in particular killing the forums
Yup. Now they can focus solely on the software and not our nonsense. Forums are best run by the users. I'm glad it happened for everyone's sake.
davidicus wrote:[*] although pitched as faster updates, the new architecture also makes much smaller updates possible, and frequency can change
Yup. Smaller size of the program is an awesome accomplishment. And a necessity when planning frequent updates
davidicus wrote:[*] Line6 relationship over
True. And a ton of developer relationships gained

Unfortunate for those Podfarm users... But moving into the future, Rack Extensions is the perfect answer to avoid any such situation again.
davidicus wrote:[*] they finally relented and added IRs (and made it look easy); this effectively destroys reverb extensions income and development
RV7000 MkII is amazing and opens up many doors! But certainly doesn't close any. Following the release of Blamsoft's Zero, some users are already asking if the reverb found on Zero could be made into a separate RE device. Demand will never go away for options of different character and approaches.
davidicus wrote:maybe the Props are over their peak and in the end of their life cycle

Nope. The word has been spread of Propellerhead in ways it never could have been before via very popular mobile apps and through the multitude of channels of RE developers. For instance, do you think many Rob Papen customers were aware of Reason before Rack Extension? Probably not many. Now they do—hard to avoid it. More folks know of Propellerhead than ever before. And Reason is becoming more and more capable and popular. The ship has been fine-tuned, well-oiled, and sailing like never before.
So, I'm confused by everything you are trying to say here.