Should you buy Logic Studio Academic? Well if you plan on upgrading, I would advise against it since it's only 50 bucks cheaper and non-upgradable. Here's the break down.

____________________________________________________________
[b]
Logic Studio              [/b]                     [b]Logic Studio Academic[/b]
                                               
  Cost of Logic Studio: $500               Cost of Logic studio academic:  $450


  Upgradeable!                                 Non upgradeable!?
  Projected upgrade cost: 200             Projected next version cost: $450
____________________________________________________________
[b]
  Logic Studio total:         $700             Logic studio Academic total:  $900[/b] 



Ok, this math teacher needs to grade some papers....  I should make this my next test question :)
                                                   

As an additional side note, last time I checked Academic versions were not technically allowed to make tracks for profit. Is this still true? Does anyone check?

VERY interesting man.  Let us know if you find out any more about the making tracks for profit...

That's actually true of all academic software.  That's why it's ";academic";.  It's use is constrained to the non-profit, educational use.  If you own a business, you need the full version.  If you're writing for a high school you teach, you should be fine; it's an academic pursuit.

But as it was said, you have a very astute point about update paths.  Some academic software does not allow for upgrades.  That said, crossgrades are your friend!  Even if you're licensed with one academically, the next software as a crossgrade is (AFAIK) legal.  And since everyone here owns a version of Kontakt, many, many crossgrades are available!  Check for sure, but for example, if you want a new, full version of Cubase 4.1, you can get it for $349  instead of $799 -- cheaper than academic even.

[url]http://www.scitscat.com/catalog/steinberg-cubase-crossgrade-p-2349.html?osCsid=f85cc126b41035ac4855a6f802f1dcd4[/url]

So pay attention to both academic and crossgrades, and the upgrade path.  If you make money from your endeavor, buy the full version / crossgrade.  Sometimes academic makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.

make sense to me...

Thanks man!