Sometimes you have to think....
Be glad you do not have to buy machine embroidery digitizing software! Embird is a good example.
They update once a year, and every other year they call it a major upgrade that we have to pay for. The changelog is like 5 to max 10 items per update and mostly bug fixes. So basically what Ashley cover in a minor update is same amount as for Embird in their paid upgrade!
The software itself looks like it is firmly stuck in the mid of 90's too with useability in similar level. But I have to use because I paid thousands of SEK for that software + plugins (that should be part of software itself like importers and true type font) and that there's not too many to choose between...
This put things in perspective.
But with that said, of course we want the best.