Martin,
I don't see much of a priority to deal with the key focus issue in your last post if I read between the lines correctly.
A standalone version is all good for its own purpose, but when working with a host, you want to stay in that environment and don't want to be forced to click constantly between two apps not to mention the headache when you mess up one or the other app because you thought the key focus was in the other one.
A good workflow provides speed and that has a lot to do in my opinion with having your Key Commands customized and "flying through" the commands as a second nature. That however is extremely compromised when you have to constantly check what app is in focus before you hit a key.
I know, not many plug-ins use their own key commands and that is a good thing. It would create too much confusion. That confusion is already happening to some extend in Logic8 where you can have key commands performing different tasks depending what window inside Logic has the key focus.
Software developer give us amazing tools and let us be creative in ways we couldn't even imagine a few years ago. But we as the grateful user have to make ourself heard when some developments seem to go into the wrong direction or going out of hand that will be counter productive in our creative process, i.e. messed up key focus and GUIs that force us to make unnecessary clicks over and over again.
And William,
it seems that you have a problem with "workflow". I hope it is just the word you don't like because I'm sure YOU have one in your work unless you work in utter chaos which is fine as long as it suits you.
I have no desire to use VE inside the DAW because it duplicates features that are already there in the DAW (Mixer) and just makes routing (Sends, Returns, Reverb plug-ins) more messy. But I have a desire of using the VI as a plug-in like any other plug-in inside the DAW as long as it doesn't interrupt my (yes you guessed it) workflow. The "outsourcing" of memory and CPU independent from the host is the right step as long as the GUI and Workflow (here we go again) doesn't suffer.
I worked many years with a configuration of one machine running the host (Logic) and three PCs running Gigastudio. Now I'm down to two 8-core MacPros, one running Logic as the main Sequencer and the slave machine running Logic as a playback Sampler that gives me the same firepower as the 3PCs.
I wished the technology of distributed processing and grid computing would move a little faster in the audio production world. The fragmentation of our production tools (Master and Slave computers) creates too many problems. Why would you build a mixing environment with 5 patched up Mackie mixers when you can run the same thing on a big 100+ channel mixing console where everything is centralized.
This is the direction were the developers should push it. But that is just my opinion