I'll address this part but first - thanks for the kind words, much appreciated. Glad you are getting something out of our involvement here.HaganeSteel wrote: One of the things ST has done right, that few other synth/sample manufacturers have, is that it gets the attack transients on the samples right. That's kind of a sad statement about the competition (specifically Dimension Pro), but it's true.
About the quote above - yes, the sampling is important so you can get the excellent quality on the front end and there are also very usable and powerful tools once you start using those sounds. For example, the engine itself will still do something that was powerful when SampleTank originally included it and it will be very powerful to use in SampleTank 3: the formant preserving pitch-shift/time-stretch that is simple to use but exceptional in what it does for you.
The workflow is important too, and even now there are very quick routes to get to what you want to do - we just posted this Miroslav Philharmonik tip from a user today because it is still relevant and useful, and it is just one example of how quickly you can get sounds that help you record and perform without hours of prep or hard-to-perform "moves" required:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzZukm8nNoM