A friend asked me to recommend a scorewriter and I'd like to share some of my personal experiences.
I had used various scorewriters, from a very early version of Copyist (1988), Encore, Overture, and then settled on Finale for more than a decade, before switching to Sibelius 6.1 lately. Every switch was motivated by the new features provided, except for the last switch, motivated by Sibelius' promotional price, which I started to look for due to Finale's licensing restriction.
Long story short, I am very glad that I made the switch. Sibelius, with its younger age, has less historical burden that Finale bears -- Finale was the pioneer program that made scorewriting possible on personal computers, but some of its designs do not (or not soon enough) include newer technological advances such as newer UI design philosophy, better MIDI capability, more flexible audio routing and manipulation, etc.
