I really don't want this to turn into the flame war that often erupts on 2+2 over this very topic but here's my two cents:
PT3 - Yes, it isn't nearly as feature rich as it's predecessor is - yet. As for the HUD problems - I have only ever had PT3 crash out on me once and I was only single tabling. Go figure. I can routinely be playing four tables with no HUD problems at all. There seems to be some part of the code that is causing problems for some computers and works perfectly fine with others. Obviously, these types of bugs can be painful to find and squash. Part of me agrees with the idea that Josh rushed it out and part of me disagrees. I used some of the public betas prior to the release and didn't have many issues with it at all - those issues I did have were just small nits like sorting defaults etc. All indications Josh had prior to the "commercial" release were that it was stable. All private beta and public beta reports were of a fairly stable platform. It does appear that the majority of people having problems (which is NOT the majority of users, but only a small number of users by the sounds of it) are the players that have many millions of hands in their database and routinely run 10+ tables. But again, it's not consistent as there are some players in that category who aren't having any problems. In hindsight, maybe a couple more months of beta really pushing people to get out there and try AND actually report any bugs they found would have caught the problems. Who knows? I'll touch back on this at the end of the post.
HEM - I played with this back when it firsts came out. It was buggy, crashed a lot, and was slow at importing. I deleted it. Kinda like you with PT3. Now, a year down the round, it's mostly bug free and not crashing anymore, but from what I've read on 2+2 it's still incredibly slow importing hands. That's been my only exposure to HEM. I have no need for two trackers (especially ones I have to pay for) so it's unlikely that I'll ever buy a different one.
As for PEV, the release of it keeps getting delayed. Which is a good thing. I think that Phil has learned from watching the issues Josh is having. The one thing to take away from all of it, which I think he has, is that poker players, at least those on 2+2 are, for the most part, an ungrateful bunch of bastards. You post some screenshots and then they start begging and pleading for a release, chastising you when you miss your tentative open beta date. Then, when you finally do give in a post a public beta saying that there are going to be bugs, they tear you a new one for releasing buggy code.
You also forgot to mention the OpenSource effort that is being developed.
Going back to PT3 for a minute as promised. Again, this is all in hindsight - but were I Josh, I would have probably scoured the HEM threads on it's forum and 2+2 looking for people that had major issues with HEM during it's growth period and asked those people to test PT3 with a promise of a free license for helping track down and squash the bugs. It may have cost him a $1000 or so in lost sales but the trade-off would have been invaluable. All in hindsight however...
You've made it perfectly clear your standing on the two NextGen trackers (and I think my preference is pretty clear as well
) but I would ask you to consider one of two things. Think back to a year ago when HEM first "commercial" release came out - all the bitching and moaning it's users made. Or, wait until May 2009 - one year from the "commercial" release of PT3 and evaluate against HEM at that time (although a more fair, but unrealistic, evaluation would be to compare it against the HEM of today).
Personally, if I were one of these developers (thinking of Josh specifically here but it could apply to the others), I would happily comply with the demands for the refunds that are being asked for on the forum (there's about 5 or 6 of them I think). I would give them their money back, de-activate their license, and remove them from the forum. There's one guy on there that keeps bitching about how buggy it is and the same guy is bitching about the lack of release on the PEV thread on 2+2. Apparently there is just no pleasing that guy.
What it ultimately boils down to is personal preference. I won't make any recommendation other than this: TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF ANY TRIAL PROGRAM THAT THE DEVLOPERS OFFER. Find out which program does what you need it to. If HEM does all you'll ever want in a tracker and is working great now - go for it. If PT3 looks like it's going to have features down the road a few months that you're looking for then go for it. No one's really sure what PEV is going to offer so maybe you want to wait for it. The OpenSource project is always going to be free so no point in waiting for it. You can always run it at the same time as the others.
One other question for you Mel - you're a Mac guy right? Are you using boot camp to boot into XP for poker then? Or are you emulating XP and running the Mac clients natively?