I don't want to sound disrespectful here. But you can't blame it on a third party here. VSL has made itself dependent on Steinberg. Precisely because Steinberg announced this years ago, VSL could have reacted much sooner. Basically, I had initially bought a doomed product, thats what you telling.
I simply don't understand why VSL invests years in a product that is very popular because of its features, but then quietly removes parts of it without much notice. And i only can hope that at least one of your employees brought this to a point in some teammeeting.
I have even less understanding for why 7.1 was not immediately called 8.0 then? At least that would have provided transparency for your customers. Especially to those who bought 7 for its features. version(dot)subversion(dot)revision.
Well then. This conversation is going nowhere. There will certainly be company policy reasons for this.
Many of us would be happier with a subscription than giving up features that we have used for years. There are also 1000s of hours of creativity involved here.
Again not disrespectful, just disappointed. Especially since i stand between the chairs in chosing libraries for upcoming projects.
Sincerely!
Geronimo