[RWP] I need all of your input, please. Abandoning Reaper vs. ProTools, should I stay or go?

[Jes]

Hello list.

This is a very, very long post, so sorry about that but you have been warned.
A while back, as some of you may remember, we had a nice discussion 
about the advantages of Reaper vs. ProTools and which one aparently was better.
Well, it's decision time for me. I have learned Reaper somewhat well, 
at least well enough to get things done. I have talked about this with 
my wife, as we are trying to get a music business going, and aparently 
people liked what I contributed to the list as far as an audio sample 
of my work. I really appreciate all of your feedback on that, by the 
way! Well, long story short, I am beginning to do work for other people 
and contributing music to a full-time radio outlet here in my area. 
IT's purely a volunteer effort right now, something I look forward to 
doing. Plus, I will probably start receiving payments for my work, and 
this demands that I have a stable system that I can immediately have 
working at a moment's notice. Just in the last five minutes, I have 
come up with six reasons why ProTools, in the long run, might be a 
better option for me for productivity sake. I'm not trying to start any 
flames, I just need your help to make an informed decision.
So here are my six reasons, with an explanation for each. Are all of 
these reasons bologna?
1. ProTools is accessible right out of the box, Reaper is not.
Avid has done a heck of a lot of work to make ProTools accessible with 
Voiceover right out of the box. From the minute you get things setup, 
bam, you're ready to rock. Yes, Reaper is accessible on the Mac, but 
there is a lot of footwork to do, even to get just the basic stuff 
going, and this is something I really don't have the time to undertake, 
no matter how easy it appears.
2. ProTools is the industry standard, Reaper has a long way to catch 
up, if it ever does. To be honest, ProTools is out there, people use 
it, and there is a lot of support for it by a company who is in 
business for the professional audiophile. The result is you will get a 
great deal of support for your product, and the product will continue 
to evolve. After all, Avid has built up a rock solid customer base and 
they have a responsibility to be loyal to their following. If they 
aren't, it will be a huge loss of money and customers. On the other 
hand, from what I have gathered from some of the posts on this list, 
Reaper is basically a side-project, with very little interest in the 
money. According to a contributor, the only support Reaper gets is 
through message boards and mailing lists. Plus, the developers don't 
enforce their customers to adhere to their thirty-day trial. I have 
been using Reaper for over three and a half years and have never gotten 
flagged for it. Thus, Reaper could become abandonware at any time.
3.  Reaaccess, like it or not, will one day be rendered useless.
It's fine for some of us to say we don't care, and we will be able to 
use Reaper 3 dot so and so, or 4 dot so and so. But one day, Reaaccess 
will no longer be an option, and if the Reaper devs don't do something, 
I will not be able to be a productive musician if I rely solely on 
Reaper. Time and technology marches on, and with it, the need to keep 
up-to-date with the latest versions of the products you use. If you lag 
behind, it will eventually come back to haunt you. Let me put in a 
disclaimer right here. I know some of you will say that it's your 
choice to use an older version or move to a new one. With ProTools, I 
would agree with that, seeing as how the product is accessible right 
out of the box. With Reaper, however, if Reaper 3 and 4 are accessible 
to us, but later versions are not compatible with a screen reader, 
there is no choice. IT is a necessity that you remain where you are for 
accessibility's sake.
4. I have no easy, accessible way to backup my internal hard drive on 
my Windows machine.
I have put in a lot of work getting this PC optamized for audio work, 
from installing drivers to my USB audio interface, to installing sound 
forge, to installing Reaper and konplete 9. Native Instruments product 
was a bear to get going, and I had to spend two hours on the phone with 
a merciful sighted person just to get the thing registered. When my 
hard drive goes bye-bye, I will have no choice but go through that 
painfully grooling task again, and I cannot afford to spend my days 
trying to get this setup installed again. To my knowledge, on the 
windows side there is no means of taking an image of my C drive and 
being able to restore that image onto a new drive where the process is 
able to be done totally with speech. I would have to have sighted 
assistance at some point along the way. I'm not talking about 
unattended installations, I want to be involved in every step of the 
backup and installation process of my image. On the Mac, there are 
plenty of ways to do this, and I have used them with great success.
5. I already have a Mac and am familiar with VoiceOver, and it is easy 
to collaborate with sighted professionals on an audio project.
6. Windows is not made for audio work. There is a slight delay in when 
you hit a key and when you get output from your instrument, even with 
Asio. The Mac is made for audio stuff, and the core audio shows it. 
Even if that is not Apple's primary focus, the Mac is just much more 
stable and much more responsive and allows one to get audio stuff done 
a lot quicker.
So, am I just talking out both sides of my mouth, or do I have some 
valid points? Any opinions will be appreciated.