In the early 90's when personal computers first dropped below the $2000 mark and plotters first started becoming economically available for the average small one man shop there weren't but about half a dozen software programs one could buy that would drive a plotter to cut vinyl,...arts and letters was one of those few,....it fell out from popularity but has never went away which in itself is quite an accomplishment,...the authors have kept it up to date over the years and above all kept it economical,.....sure it isn't illustrator and or corel but it has it's place,....my suggestion,...don't knock it till you've tried it,...just because a tool doesn't come in a bright shiny package doesn't mean it can't do the job,...most users won't admit it but they rarely use 10% of the commands in Illy and corel,....power users rarely use 50% of the commands,... when all the bells and whistles aren't necessary why do we continue to pay for them? usually its because a newbie or client uses the latest version of them and we choose to upgrade to have the ability to open files,...I think we'll start to see alot of these more economical programs gain popularity in the near future as the cost of cloud subscriptions and upgrade costs/anti-piracy measures cause software prices to climb out of the reach of the average user,,.....