Hey, yeah. Interesting and fun!
I'm mainly a keyboard player and I read music and it took a good while to get familiar with Maschine. Don't use all its features and, to be honest, don't always record drum parts with it but it's useful for trying the sounds in various drum kits, selecting patterns for auditioning, quick quantising and so on.
I also got the S-49 and did the full K10U upgrade. I like its integration into the system. Obviously use it for melodic lines and auditioning sounds in Kontrol.
The Maschine software is good but the restrictions and limits on pattern arranging I find frustrating. You have to create several variations of a pattern for 1st and 2nd time bars, etc. and can't just play a pattern one time if it's 2-bars, for example, and sitting alongside a 4-bar pattern.
But most of the sounds seem well balanced and fit together well.
I've been using an old version of Cubase, too. Never tried running Maschine as a plug-in but have used the sounds in K10U as VSTs and that works fine.
Already made a few tracks and working on new stuff all the time. Many of the sounds and patterns provide instant inspiration!
Fun!