First of all, let me say hi to all, as this is my first post on the forum. And haven’t I picked ripe plum of a subject as my first interaction!
The reason that I’ve chosen this as my first post is that I am approaching VCV from the perspective of being a relatively successful music producer (disco scene) that has been keeping an eye on VCV from afar for 12 months or so; who also owns a Eurack modular system and the Softube Modular plugin (Ableton Live is my host of choice as I’ve used Cycling '74 Max for many years - mainly for midi/CV trickery rather than DSP).
I recently took the plunge into VCV and have committed most of my working hours over the last week or so digging through the modules to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of each. And as a result, have purchased the premium Vult plugins for a number of reasons. In the main, they were as follows:
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They sound great considering how light they are on CPU resources in comparison to the ‘best in class’ options in the DAW/Plugin world (Softube Modular, U-He, Native Instruments, Cytomic etc).
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I could see that Leonardo is committed to the project, uses social media channels very effectively to both promote and document his efforts; and most importantly updates his creations on a regular basis.
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Leonardo involves those customers with a passionate commitment to his output as ‘partners’ that help shape his products.
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I like that Vult plugins go beyond mere emulation.
I’ve also been impressed by certain modules within the packages from the following vendors:
21Khz, Amalgamated Harmonics, Arable Instruments, AS, Andrew’s Mutual Instruments clones (I have 4 Shruti’s that I built myself as well as various MI Eurorack modules), Befaco (I don’t own any Befaco modules but have decided to purchase a hardware Rampage off the back of my VCV testing), Bidoo, Bogaudio, cf, dBiz, E-Series, Geodesics, Gratrix, Greyscale, HetrickCV, Impromptu Modular, JW, Lindberg Research, ML Modules, mscHack, MSM, NYSTHI, Sonus Modular, Southpole, Squinky Labs, Stellare Modular and Valley.
Over time I can see myself donating to many within that list of developers (if they only develop free modules) and/or purchasing commercial options. I’ll be compelled towards that decision if those developers display similar qualities to those I’ve highlighted regarding Vult. I’ll also be purchasing some of Andrew’s commercial offerings as it seems somewhat unfair to only support third-party developers! 
With V1 and tighter DAW integration via the dedicated plugin options, Andrew will get a raft of new users producing all colors and flavours of electronic music. There will also be many like me that won’t in general attempt to create single modular patches in VCV as final compositions but rather, are more interested in VCV as ‘just another’ sound source, albeit one that takes advantage of the freedoms of modular patching.
I think it’s vital that VCV remains a free product (with a great library of free third-party modules) as it will be for many their first introduction to the wonderful world of modular synthesis. I also think that Vult has come up with a very fair mix of free and commercial offerings. That mix of free and commercial modules allows those on a learning path to benefit from the majority of his output at no cost, and at the same time provides significant advantages with his paid products for those who want to benefit from his portfolio more deeply.
To be balanced, I want to highlight some of the negatives I’ve encountered too (there are only a few).
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Some of the commercial offerings are IMO too highly priced and I believe those products would be far more successful if they were priced closer to the ‘hobbyist developer’ products that are freely available as Max4Live or Reaktor add-ons ($1-$15). It has to be remembered that great modules for Softube Modular, which are best in class (Eurorack emulations) can be purchased for under $30 and at sale time for significantly less. Those modules can also be demoed before purchase. One of the reasons that commercial third-party Max4Live add-ons (and Reaktor ensembles) are priced so keenly is that there’s no way to demo them before purchase. Currently, some third party VCV commercial options are blind purchases too. Over the years I’ve found that I’m happy to purchase blindly if it’s priced at ‘impulse purchase’ levels but less so once the pricing increases.
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It’s unfair to compare the VCV Mutable Instruments clones to the hardware or Softube versions (Braids and Clouds) but the VCV versions are a fair distance behind the Softube emulations both from an audio quality and UX perspective. The audio quality difference I put down to Softube ‘component modeling’ the complete unit and Softubes militant stance of oversampling everything within their modular emulation (this, in turn, makes Softube Modular far more processor intensive than VCV). The only reason I highlight these differences is that I believe there will be many like me, that begin their VCV exploration through the modules they know most and in the case of the Mutable Instruments clones, this doesn’t necessarily show the best that VCV has to offer. Once VCV allows the artist to choose oversampling levels within the plugin version (Bridge works at the global DAW sampling rate) this will hopefully close the gap with regards to audio quality (at the expense of increased CPU load).
These minor negatives haven’t clouded my overall impression of VCV. In a very short space of time, VCV has become a compelling software modular emulation on so many different levels. But most of all for me as a music producer, it’s capable of producing a gobsmackingly almighty range of timbre’s that ‘none’ in the traditional DAW plugin world are capable of, not even the mighty Softube Modular or Reaktor Blocks (it’s two nearest software ‘modular’ compatriots). Much like a hardware modular, it’s the vast variety of available modules that makes VCV a compelling alternative to the very best non-modular VA emulation(U-He’s Diva, Repro-1/5, Bazille, and Korg’s Odyssey being my personal plugin favorites - some of which are semi-modular). VCV may not quite pip Blocks or Softube Modular in terms of its audio quality (yet!) but it spanks them both in terms of the variety of high-quality sound generating/mangling options and with regard to its comparatively CPU friendly nature (which will be appreciated by those with more humble computer hardware). It must also be said that the slight difference in audio quality is a very reasonable compromise considering how much more accessible it makes VCV with regard to hardware platforms.
All-in-all, I’m really looking forward to continuing my journey with VCV and it’s a wonderful range of third-party modules.
jm