Rick,
Thanks for the pointers to demos. However, it seems to me that they
won't load new instruments. I could be mistaken, so I'll have to check
them out. If I get any of them to load my large soundfonts and play
anything, I'll report back on how they did compared to Specimen.
I don't see myself buying any of these any time soon. (The best
audio software of all time for me has been gcc, but it does require
a little bit more work on the part of the user.)
For others: MOTU MACH-5 for Windows is "coming soon." Halion doesn't
have a demo, but a demo movie, from what I see.