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My big problem is the price. It's just outrageous for software that I just want to hack on something every once in a while.

individual version is like $250 or so.

Only for nonprofessionals ($295). For commercial use it's much more expensive: http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individu...

Yeah.

Now if I was establishing a hedge fund, maybe it might be worth it?

But then don't expect employees to learn/work with Mathematica in their free time or between jobs.