Quote: "the forum here is still filled with vitriolic diatribes about the bugginess of the SDK, the slow support, lack of fixes and people being hauled off to work on shiny new toys instead of fixing exisiting bugs"
I think you misunderstand the spirit of the discussions in this forum about SDK. I would say moreover that I can't see anything vitriolic in it.
The main fact is that documentation is poor (you can even consider DBPro documentation as a great help to understand SDK functions !), and that a number of functions where inactive or unusable in the first releases. However, most functionalities have been reestablished in the latest SDK update, and TGC are supposed to be currently working on documentation and examples.
I think that most of the demand from SDK users, and the intensity of some requests, are precisely because SDK is a great tool, full of functionnalities and potential that we are impatient to use at its full power.
TGC developpers seem to be really dedicated to their products and are reactive to users requests. The problem is however that they seem to have too many projects at the same time...
I would personnally recommand you the SDK. In its current state, although not perfect (but which product is ?), it's a powerful, efficient, fully featured, up-to-date and easy-to-use tool.