On the money/gear issue, as far as hardware is concerned, the more you pay the better the quality of that utility ( not total packages but individual pieces of gear ). These are mostly the basic pieces like eq's, comps, limiters, gates, pre-amps and consoles ( with aforementioned included hehe ). So it's killing your wallet when you happen to like hardware for the quality.
Software is not primairly quality, but secondairly placed when considering that in general, software is just much more convenient. All the class a gear you would actualy " need " is therefor emulated in order to make appeal to the products digital oem's development and exploitation. It is not cheaper, it is far more " accesable " or " in reach " if you may.
For instance, a UAD-1 ( mackie ) is not very attractive to have without the UA 1176, Teletronix LA-2A, Pultec eqp and Fairchild 670. What about waves, with their C2 emulation ? All emualtion of hardware classics, but are they as good or better ? I doubt it because, in the setup that you'll find the hardware equivalents or originals you'd also find a big ass analogue console to blend with. The whole outcome of such a production cant and wont sound the same with your DAW that has the matchin'plugs. So what's the value in that ? You dont know unless you work with it in order to make the comparison but you can believe the original will sound better than a single worked out algorithm from such a machine. The difference, the price, difference in execution, your customers, difference in quality, about mars to jupiter.