I would like to thank Planetside for the good communication policy (much better since the release of TGTP). I am also thankful for the extension of the preview pricing. Frankly, so far I have not felt the need to purchase the Deep Edition, purely from the functionality perspective. Many of my renders take a long time already with the max. settings, the only thing I could have used in a couple of scenes may be more populations. But I am still planning on acquiring TG, both for future needs and to support planetside, so that the product can continue being advanced and improved.
Also, I'd like to add a voice to those lacking the latest computer hardware. Purchasing my components in May 2005, putting together a then upper-mid-range system - not inexpensive- in terms of performance (Athlon 64 3200+, 1GB RAM in dual channel, SATA MOBO), I am done for a while with upgrades of core components, unless something breaks. I'd like Terragen to remain usable on such a system for at least the next year or so for hobbyists like me. If I were to do commercial projects I probably would be quick to spend the cash and buy a multiprocessor MOBO, one of the newer CPUs and load up on RAM, but as it is, the system has plenty of power for all my other needs. And as has been mentioned, there are people with much less powerful hardware trying to run Terragen. I am sure everybody will be happy as long as you give people an explanation which settings generally affect render time the most and how the use of the different shaders plays into that. I realize there's no quick answer here, this could grow into a nice book-size guide alone
Just my opinion.
Merry Christmas!