Steve, I'd like to add a couple comments to your discussion: comparing MIR Pro to VE Pro is sort of like comparing apples and oranges. They are two different programs with two different purposes. The different purposes of the two programs were probably clearer in the "old" days of MIR and VE Pro 4, where MIR did not require VE Pro, and in fact could not run under or with VE Pro.
While designed as a general mixing host, VE Pro 4 was not designed as the elegant "one step" solution that was intended with MIR. The fact that the two programs were entirely separate made the distinction easier. MIR Pro and VE Pro 5 are still, in essence, two separate programs with different intents. The fact that MIR Pro now requires VE Pro 5 in order to run blurs that distinction in terms of work flow/operations. Nevertheless, the purpose of the two programs remains distinct.
From a business standpoint (though of course I have no access to VSL's financial data), given the time it took to create MIR and then, MIR Pro, I strongly suspect that it has one of the highest development costs of anything VSL has produced (creating "new concept" programs tends to require considerably more funds). In contrast, the basic concepts of VE Pro 5, at least in terms of routing abilities, IIRC, goes back to the VE 3 days... i.e. several years ago. Its core is based on older concepts, unlike MIR which is definitely "new".