that's a good perspective - I always forget how much alternative options windows users are having that are either unheard of on mac (microsoft didn't spend a dime to port the allegedly fabulous paint kit that is freshpaint anywhere outside of windows, and painter has been performing like utter shit on mac for a good decade at this point - I switched from windows in 2011, keeping a windows 7 virtual machine for another half decade just to have painter 9 working here.)

I'm not going to argue with you in regards to realism and what we both understand by it; for me, artrage thick oil is natural in an effortless, cleaner than traditional medium way. there're ways to tweak the impasto strength in both artrage 6 and vitae, there're ways to work things around, but since you have a dozen better alternatives in mind, it's just more reasonable to stick to what you already know and trust.