Personally I don't think I've heard a HW or SW-synth that I like as much as the virus, of course this is my personal opinion.
I use both HW and SW but often it's to complement the virus rather than the other way around.
Some VSTs are also very CPU heavy and that kind of breaks the whole idea.
E.g. I remember when I tested the Arturia CS80v, complex HW for sure to emulate but with an i7 965 CPU, using a single patch, it could grab 30-40% of the CPU.
Sure it would be cheaper to buy a computer just for that VST rather than bying a real CS80 but somehow I don't think that was the idea
