Holy poverty Batman! That seems like a lot, but looking at the Meta site, at least the "standard" version is still afordable ($53 USD new, $36 for upgrade). Maybe he's trying to upgrade the high end Meta to a pro-level tool, while still keeping it version that's affordable for hobbyists.
It never feels good to have to make do with a lesser versions, but looks like the main difference between Standard an Ex is that Ex has more output/input formats and some neat rendering options. Those are great, but I can maybe live without them. Will v4 support old plugins?
Ben, I would find it quite helpful to see a video of the texturing phase. I gave up on making my own textures from scratch (as opposed to using photoshopped pictures) because every time I tried came out looking like a 2yr old finger-paint art. I love the idea of doing it from scratch, but I'm just getting something horribly wrong 
It never feels good to have to make do with a lesser versions, but looks like the main difference between Standard an Ex is that Ex has more output/input formats and some neat rendering options. Those are great, but I can maybe live without them. Will v4 support old plugins?
Ben, I would find it quite helpful to see a video of the texturing phase. I gave up on making my own textures from scratch (as opposed to using photoshopped pictures) because every time I tried came out looking like a 2yr old finger-paint art. I love the idea of doing it from scratch, but I'm just getting something horribly wrong