Yeah, not really. More likely to not know what they have, regardless of when they buy.
If an individual doesn’t have a history of learning advanced levels of 3D solid modeling, civil engineering, architecture, 3D design, machining, fabrication etc. via upper level curriculums of education with experience using programs like CATIA, Inventor, Autocad, Revit, Solidworks, Mastercam; then: they will have hardly any reference as to the value of Rhino post V4-V7.
Everything is relative of course. So whose to say how people tend to interpret Rhino.
From my perspective, I’ve dedicated many hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment into the CAD/CAM/CNC world, plus 2 decades of life, and my current ongoing conclusion is that Rhino is the best CAD solution – period.
Not only that but I believe that the direction Rhino is going is capable of becoming the solution for many other disciplines as well. Due to the plug-in strategy, the possibilities are limitless – in the long run.
Any newcomer, without a history in these fields upto this point, will have no relative gauge to interpret the value of R4-R8. Or rather maybe lack appreciation for the struggle to arrive here.
Who knows what users will tend to accomplish with software capable of being the solution for nearly everything. Will they push the solutions to occur sooner than later? Or will they submit to some other endless-fee “solutions”?
I recall having many opportunities to play with WIP’s ever since my first license of V4. I eventually upgraded to V5. I skipped V6 because V5 was perfectly fine. But once I learned the power of V7 I upgraded immediately because the “value” as you call it is night-and-day.
Hence, if a person is debating about whether to buy V7 or wait until V8, well frankly, that person has absolutely zero clue as to how to interpret “value” of V7 relative to every other version of Rhino throughout history.
For a measly $1k anyone today can buy V7 and literally wield the power of decades and decades of technological development culminated into one place.
If one can’t understand that, then one has no clue what they have or what they’re missing.
This reminds me of the parable of the jade stone master.
Howabout price should go up as the fed prints money out of thin air and dilutes the value of the dollar over time?
Put this into perspective, at the start of 2020 we had $4T in circulation. Now, there’s nearly $19T in circulation – a 375% jump in 3yrs.
Is it Rhno’s job to buffer the dilution of the dollar by staying the same price or reducing the price? Howabout any other company’s products? Should the price of houses stay the same or go down too? And howabout land? Food? Water? Gas? Utilities? etc?
The “value” of the dollar is literally worth less that 3% of what it used to be worth – before 1913.
It absolutely blows my mind that a person can buy R7 today for less than $1k: Rhino 8 - 3D CAD for Windows and Mac
Not only that but it works on Mac. The power to dollar ratio is absolutely phenomenal. To hesitate to access the power – simply makes no sense.
So due to true inflation being 375%, the cost of Rhino today is less than $250 of the dollars value prior to 2020. 
The cost of Rhino not going up at least 15% in the last few yrs, is odd.
It only proves that the company backing Rhino is one of those rare companies that is taking a huge sacrifice for it’s customers – in terms of survival.
Consider the value of time, and the taxation of consumed mental-capital of pondering on this matter.
I’ve given you probably a $1k of my time and wisdom on this matter – for free. Gladly of course.
Yeah, for me I really don’t see that to be possible. The only path to learning to live without Rhino, would cost me $200-$300 per month – at least. Or I could attempt to write my own software, which would cost tremendous amounts of time, and probably millions of dollars in the long run.
That’s understandable, but everything is relative. $1k is puny in comparison to everything. Sorry to be frank, and maybe it’s just my opinion, no matter how correct I might be.
A current individual perpetual license of Zbrush appears to be about the same cost as Rhino. Ultimately, if you already own Zbrush, then you can probably use it to find ways to avoid the investment in Rhino, but it obviously depends on what geometries you need to create to earn a living.
Personally, many years ago I bought a license of 3DCoat, as an alternative to buying Zbrush. But honestly I never use it, and have never upgraded it. In the future I might decide to, and I might even buy Zbrush. But, Rhino is what I use to make a living, and probably couldn’t live without.
I consider alot of those “artistic” programs to be CAD’s. I even consider those Adobe programs to be CAD’s. I even consider windows “paint” to be a CAD.
To put it into perspective, that’s simply how I choose to interpret the world of GUI’s.
If it’s not drawn on a napkin, or a piece of paper, and it’s on a computer screen, then it’s a CAD – imo.
By definition, if a computer is being used to aid or assist a user to design or draft anything, then it’s a CAD.
So, it’s all in how you use it. Everything else is buzzwords and hype for psychology games and sales.
I greatly appreciate your perspective here. It is very interesting to me and how it relates to my own. See, I began my journey in the CAD’s by first starting with programs like R14, Autocad; then quickly got very devoted into ones like Inventor, CATIA, Solidworks etc.
So, I’m very familiar with the “parasolid” format that you’ve experienced while using Plasticity. Hence, the whole “fillet” power thing.
Maybe someday, Rhino can overcome the major deficiency it has with “fillet” power. I’ve been waiting 15yrs.
I may try using the strategy you’ve mention, in a workflow of somekind, but there’s a risk in getting sucked into the parasolid trap. Yes it appears to be a bridge, until it’s not; depending on long run costs in the future.
Very interesting perspectives here as well. Indeed, Rhino Nurbs seem to be missing some evolutionary powers, but from my perspective a huge ‘bridge’ has been merged in with sub-D and Grasshopper. I sense a huge shift, and something big coming in V8-V9 etc. Maybe in due time.
They always end up collecting dust on their bookshelves or something. Yeah I guess we’re the tester chumps 
. Definitely AI is a new universe on its own.
