I'm extremely comfortable with the layout of Sonic Foundry's/Sony Pictures Digital's Acid Pro--which I've mistakenly used for years for recording--but the problem is that the program was never intended (says a rep from the company) to be used for audio recording, which is why playback gets choppy after about 25 tracks of audio (before this, I'd always attributed said problem to my computer's specs, which are definitely adequate based on recording.org's recommendations).

My question is this: is there a program that features a layout similar to Acid Pro, but that actually WORKS with audio other than loops? I've tried Cubase SX 2 and Pro Tools, but these don't feel like home to me.

Some have made claims that Cool Edit is a solution to Acid, but does it have similar limitations (only DX plugin support, latency issues, etc.)? Any advice or input is welcomed.