I never disagree with anything you say OP, but ya can't base your whole Gerber thing on that first shopping experience. Sure - in the beginning - Gerber was highly proprietary and very expensive. I think few could deny their equipment was/is ruggedly built and lasts forever. Plus, I was willing to accept that they had a huge R&D investment to recover. And their stuff ALWAYS was "plug & play" & cut signs with never another headache or frustration. I can recall a friend of MINE, who, upon getting his 1st Roland plotter and Corel, nearly took a 2x4 to it quite often. Roland obviously jumped in and offered what they could within the limits of Gerber's patents.
I now have a Roland too. I experienced everything my friend did with it. Overall, the quality of it is blatantly not up to the industrial duty quality of the two Gerber plotters sitting here... but sure, it works - now. I have yet to hear anything against Gerber from owners of it - just the same old stories of back when it was all proprietary and not open architecture. I've heard plenty of complaints from owners of other brands.
When I sold my plotter once to someone, they quickly decided they needed a bigger one. ALL their people could use the Gerber. They got a Summa, and soon everyone was pissed because of the LACK of just hitting the cut button and forgetting about it. Fact is, & I guess ya'd hafta own Gerber to know this, it is hands down the best. The software is for making signs - it's not a drawing program (although now you can do everything with it you can do with most any illustration software). Corel sucks wind and always has compared to Omega.
I know we'll never agree on this - but at least I just equal time!
