There really is an embarrassment of wealth in terms of DAWs these days.

At the low end, Reaper, Cakewalk, GarageBand (not to mention Cubasis and Auria on the iPad), FL Studio, Reason Essentials, Bitwig 16-track et al. give you amazing capabilities for very little (sometimes no) money.

There is also an amazing wealth of great cheap or free instrument and effect plugins.