I did a fair amount of research for a music teacher on this earlier this year, and she ended up buying Finale. She got it for a 50 percent academic discount, somewhere between $250 and $300. Everything I read said that Finale and Sibelius are the two industry-standard packages, and supporters of each have a low opinion of the other. Sibelius is said to be more "user-friendly," and Finale more "sophisticated" - but just by a hair. Both programs are supposed to produce excellent results - but I have to say I've had a bear of a time keeping ahead of the teacher in learning to use Finale, so I can solve her problems.
Still, it seems to be a very good program, and what it produces is certainly sophisticated.
The teacher gave her Windows 3.1 version of Finale to my stepson, so I've had to learn to use that, too. I had to convert her Win 3.1 files to the current version. That went relatively smoothly.
For my needs, I prefer Noteworthy Composer - but my needs are simple.
-Joe Offer-