I am not disputing the value of Vectric products. My experience so far is the PhotoVCarve and VC Desktop do a very good job and are fairly intuitive to navigate. If at some point I am able to afford Aspire I most certainly will do that. In the meantime I will continue to turn out great work within the limitations of what I can afford.
By free for those that can afford it, I mean that if you can afford the premium programs in the first place then the gadgets will work for you; for the rest, not so much. While nesting, tool path templates and rotary machining can be useful for smaller machines, I do not have use for those features right now. The gadget that would be of greatest use to me is the drag knife app. It will just have to wait until I can upgrade.
G Edward