I'm interested in someone's experienced p.o.v. who has used BOTH applications in a serious, perhaps even pro or semi-pro manner.

I'm not a teenager making "bedroom studio" pop or dance tunes, I'm a somewhat old-school musician/arranger/composer who uses Cubase SX but one living on a limited disability income (read: ain't got moolah to burn on expensive libraries).

I have not yet purchased either Sequel or Music Studio but have messed around in the trial version of each one. My system is WinXP on Intel Pentium D, with maximum DDRM for 32-bit system.

General Situation
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I've had Cubase SX since it first came out (v.3 at this point) and so I obviously use that as my main music creation app and love it. I tend to play most instruments myself via my Korg Trinity workstation = record. Except drums.

I want to diversify my compositions by playing around with some pre-fab grooves and so on and make things easier for myself. I used to have Band-in-A-Box but it's tedious to use IMO. I do have a few old Keyfax drum and base stuff, but I like the idea of pushing around various instruments in inventive ways as a sort of rough music sketch pad for ideas.

Ergo I'm considering getting Sequel or Music Studio* (*I already have the freebie version of Sony Music Studio. I use Sony Vegas Pro 8 for video.

--- Acid Music Studio ---

Acid is fine for audio loops, but since I am from the old school slower tempo Pink Floyd type of style, audio loops have their limitations due to often having to transpose down which degrades samples. Using Hitpoints in SX can get a bit tricky too.

The big advantage with Acid is that it's been around a long time and has a huge online community.

--- Sequel ---

Due to Steinberg's industry leading strength in MIDI implementation, Sequel has far more loops that are in fact MIDI based and therefore transposing and tweaking are easy and free of distortions.

From what I understand, one can also open a Sequel file in SX and do the serious editing and mixing there.

Sequel is just a newborn but promising app, so there is so far no real community online for it (the forum is just as newborn).
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Each application has its advantages. Your own thoughts and feedback welcomed.