Some comments from the cheap seats

Solid works and hsm express are impressive combo
Schools around here "I just checked" teach solid works and mastercam combo
I use sprut and autocad or bobcad combo

Honestly I could not even get a price on solid works or most of the high end software.
Some regional sales person called me and quoted me like 8k just for solid works....
Like ok, I don't have time for car sales, I want to drive away not play games.
I understand their revenue model and why they use it in most cases. Also why they have little interest in non commercial use.

Anyway your background will also help determine how long all this will take to get up to speed.
High end cad software alone like autocad, solid works and others are imho among the most complex programs on this planet. Having half a life time experience using cad software helped me climb that mountain!
So far my exposure to middle or high end cam software has also shown them to be extremely complex and not easy to use or even learn how to use, as you noted in your post.
As others have noted they all have bugs, complex programs always do. Much of this can be limited if the machine is dedicated to cad/cam and not used for games and other suspect software installs.

Note on my cam choice.
It is easy to see how a program like sprutcam and its interface / model design could bring people to tears or pound on desk. "had me scratching my head why".
Then I stepped back and looked at it from a programmer point of view. Some of the readers of this thread might know and understand o.o.p. "object oriented programming" when they see it. That alone was a huge step for me and that software. "again I have little background with oop so this helped". Understanding A little bit of how Microsoft c++ implements a oop data structure and how that data is shown and edited in associated list boxes will make 1000% difference in the performance of that program, and how often you pound on the desk. "My secret in case others wonder"

Overall just an opinion of a new cam user.
Bottom line and main reason I went with sprut was 4th axis ability. Again as a individual, I could not even get a cost for that with other vendors.
And I did not know enough about any other part of cam software to make a more informed decision so I trusted tormach was selling something decent like their tools.
Big leap of faith and for a few days I questioned if this was good idea.


Good luck with your new machine and cad/cam system!
A long challenging and rewarding road imho is ahead.
md