Cadence (OrCAD) Capture vs System Capture

@redwire - Perhaps it might be good to work with your local AE. There are methods in System Capture to use DE-HDL scripts to accomplish similar commands you used in DE-HDL. I do agree, OrCAD Capture is easier to use compared to DE-HDL. And, that's why System Capture leverages the easier to use model. Most customers using OrCAD Capture pick us System Capture quickly. Again, express your concerns to your local AE and ask them to review the System Capture differences. You might be surprised.

@Kenneth Wood. I'd encourage you to work with your local Cadence AE. Many customers using OrCAD Capture state that using System Capture is very similar. You mentioned issues with reading System Capture generated OrCAD Capture files. Have you reported these issues? If not, please do as we need to know if there are any problems. I can't speak to exporting PADs netlist files since the work I do is specifically with System Capture/Allegro PCB Editor. 

Surely, you can continue to use OrCAD Capture. As System Capture grows and evolves, you may consider it in the future.

I suspect someone in Cadence Marketing did a deep dive why companies choose Altium.  Altium sucks, yet people keep buying it and basing their senior projects on it.   

In my experience, the decision is made by engineers looking for the easy button for Design Capture.  Arguably.  Orcad can be fragile at this. 

System Capture has a glaringly simple UI with very few buttons. 

As the guy answering questions for a dozen engineers who capture schematics during team whiteboard collab meetings and don't want to look like an idiot, this is so sexy.

Smart board design professionals do not choose P*DS.  System engineers do.   Cadence needs to let P*DS die.   

Altium does suck but it sucks a lot less than it used to...and it won’t suck forever at the rate they innovate and update the software. If Cadence's grand scheme is to make me use System Capture instead of spending less time posting to social media sites announcing what a great company Cadence is to work for and more time fixing the darn tool then Altium here I come. PADS is not a Cadence product and Siemens has been making upgrades over the last few years to the program, not huge updates but updates none the less. PADS still has its uses as it is still the best software to use if you need to recreate a customer's board from scratch without a schematic...which I have to do from time to time. Cadence comes off like a typical California company that knows best and unwashed plebs like me just aren't sophisticated enough to understand its greatness. The idea of just moving my company to System Capture is a perfect example of how they seemingly know nothing of what we're doing out here. Couple that with CCRs that go nowhere because they claim to not see the issues that I see and that I must be the only one on the planet having issues (even though every user I speak with says the same thing) then the idea of paying over double the annual maintenance costs of any other tool becomes tiresome.

Couldn't agree more with much of what Mr. Wood posted
IMHO (Cadence user of about 20 years), they do not listen to the customers for new development.  The software developers want to make the tool simple easy and shinny.  I would suggest the software team talk with the users about how they get their job done instead of trying to play to the lowest denominator and look like the competitors.