I moved to Audition (actually Cool Edit Pro at the time) from Pro Tools, because it's extremely fast and it was one of the earliest programs to adopt the 32-bit floating point system. The included effects are also outstanding, from a sound quality point of view. They lack the visual feedback that I'd like to see, so I now rely largely upon third-party plug-ins. As an editor, nothing beats Audition's capabilities. The original Cool edit was designed as an editor...Not a multitracker. And the program has continued to evolve as an outstanding editor. However, the multitrack (especially in 2.0) could use some streamlining. Audition 1.5 was solid as hell and worked very well...But it lacked automation and ASIO. 2.0 added those things, but screwed up several other things. So right now, 2.0 just needs to be refined for speed and stability. I still use 2.0, but there are things I miss about 1.5.
I've used pretty much everything on the market...Nothing is as fast as Audition (workflow, not program speed). At this point, if Audition dropped off the face of the earth, I'd probably go back to Pro Tools. I'm still pretty comfortable with it, even though I don't really like it at all, and the mix bus is flawed. Either Pro Tools or Wavelab. Wavelab is solid too. I don't like Samplitude at all...Too musical. Same goes for Sonar, Tracktion and Cubase. I don't mid Vegas, but it's not rubust enough for audio for me...Too focused on video. Logic is alright.
Use what your comfortable with. If you like Samplitude, use it. It comes down to what's going to work best for you...Just like all gear. I work out of different studios all the time. I don't mind going to track a band on Sonar or Pro Tools at all. If I have to use something other than Audition to mix a song or two, I can live with that. And if I'm traveling and I have to use a borrowed studio, I don't complain. But if I have to spend any long amount of time in a single studio, I'm very particular about the gear, software and room layout. I have to be comfortable. I'd rather work in a $10,000 studio that I designed, than a $100,000 studio made for someone else.
So for me, it has nothing to do with price. I chose Audition because I was unhappy with Pro Tools, and didn't reallly care for anything else on the market. It works the way I think it should (for the most part) and I'm comfortable with it.
Emmett