I went with softsynths for a while, and you certainly get a wild variety of sonic possibilities for a lot less money. They are fantastic for sound sculpting. If I was going to do a movie soundtrack, or sound design for games or something, I would likely rely on them almost exclusively.
However I found myself really missing the immediacy of knobs and buttons, especially when I got back into playing my Korg MS-2000 with other people. That's not a true analog synth, but it has a front panel that is comparable to them. I have used MIDI controllers to try to get the same kind of feeling from a softsynth, but there's something to be said for having your control surface's layout match that of your synth--I never had the same kind of intuition about keying in or tweaking a sound via MIDI controller as I do with the Korg.
I dream of an interface that can be physically rearranged so that its knobs and sliders mirror the layout onscreen. Like a tactile touchscreen. A good synth's signal flow can be understood by "reading" its control layout, whether it's hardware or software, and for me at least, there is a huge loss when mentally mapping a well-designed interface to a boring row of eight unlabeled knobs.
Knobby synth (ms2k, sh201, jp8k or 8080, Supernova, ESQ1, DW6k/8k, AX60, KS4, AN1X etc etc) + knobby/easily mapped controller (i use Axioms and Novation SL Mark 2 even tho the pots/faders/encoders have proved not especially reliable) is a great combination.
(And when korg/roland/Yamaha/teenage/Waldorf/DSmith come out with new stuff, i'll spend some time on sonicState's youtube channel and the forums (Wigglers, Slutz, /r/Synthesizers) to see what the excitement's about.
Free and probably not easy: PD; SuperCollider; Csound; ChucK
Not free: Arturia Suite; NI Reaktor, Massive, Absynth; Serum; Sylenth; Nexus; Spire
They all have a different sound. Some are modular, some are straight analogue clones, some are hybrids.
I used to design analogue synth hardware. Now I design non-analogue software. The software does a lot more, is vastly less expensive, takes up much less space, is easier to keep clean, and much easier to move. :)
However I found myself really missing the immediacy of knobs and buttons, especially when I got back into playing my Korg MS-2000 with other people. That's not a true analog synth, but it has a front panel that is comparable to them. I have used MIDI controllers to try to get the same kind of feeling from a softsynth, but there's something to be said for having your control surface's layout match that of your synth--I never had the same kind of intuition about keying in or tweaking a sound via MIDI controller as I do with the Korg.
I dream of an interface that can be physically rearranged so that its knobs and sliders mirror the layout onscreen. Like a tactile touchscreen. A good synth's signal flow can be understood by "reading" its control layout, whether it's hardware or software, and for me at least, there is a huge loss when mentally mapping a well-designed interface to a boring row of eight unlabeled knobs.