My thoughts on this overall is that Access is a company that needs to either adapt to the realities of modern softsynths and either provide a competitive advantage over softsynths or modify the price of their expensive hardware to make more sense in the wake of competition.
The Virus came to popularity at a time when Core i7 processors did not yet exist and soft-synths were not quite where they are now, both in quality and variety. Back then it took a different approach to incorporating a signal from hardware and all the latency that comes with it into a fully produced track. These days, once you've tried a pure software approach and not had to deal with as many middlemen steps, it becomes much harder to justify external hardware and all the timing niggles.
Clearly Access acknowledged this when they introduced the notion of DAW integration. My personal belief is that they are currently experiencing a case of arrested development, living in the spotlight of past hardware successes without acknowledging how important the software integration really is. That could lead to their downfall and that is not going to change if folks keep patting them on the balls telling them how awesome the Virus is. It sounds nice, but there are a lot of modern softsynths that sound just as good if you route them through equivalent processing and signal paths. The difference is that many of us would like to use the computer for sequencing and general arrangement, while not being limited to the CPU or threading limitations of a single piece of hardware. At least, this is what I wanted out of the Virus, great sounds that didn't load up my CPU. But if I have to give one or the other up, guess which wins? The fact that I don't have a Virus today answers that question, as I am happily composing along with amazing softsynths like Zebra2, Synthmaster, Dune, Sylenth, etc. The synths you're more likely to hear in professional tracks these days anyway, for the same reasons I've described here.... easier to work with, easier to produce music with. This is what Access is missing.
Beyond that, I cannot bring myself to buy a simple TI Snow, because it seems everywhere I look (at dealers I'm familiar with) the price is fixed to something like $1386 US. See a problem there? Especially when the last two digits are 8 and 6? Funny coincidence eh? Meanwhile I can get a wide assortment of synths that sound indistinguishable but cost a fraction of it.
As I see it, the ball is in Access' court now. They can fix shit or die, plain and simple.
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