I have finally got a workable rig going. I set out to setup my home recording studio and purchased Pro Tools 11 (I am on a Mac) and Arturia Collection V which contains some great Virtual vintage synths like the Prophet V and Moog Mini. It also has a good ARP emulation.
I went ahead a spent some money on a good MIDI controller as well... ended up with an AKAI Pro MAX 49.
Could stop here and be fairly happy, but still want to add some good studio monitors and also a mixer which I have decided will be a Allen and Heath 12 Channel mixer and I am leaning towards the Yamaha HS8's for the monitors.
For my microphone, a trusty good ol' EV RE20

Other than the gear mentioned, I have decided that my keyboard rig needs an Alesis Andromeda A6 and I still want a real Mini Moog (probably Voyager) at some point.
As fate would have it, I did see the Alesis for under $3000 on ebay and would have jumped on it, but the timing (funding) is low -- that figures!
My influences in the synth world are varied, but mainly in no particular order:
Roger Powell
Keith Emerson
Geoff Downes
Thomas Dolby
Mark Mothersbaugh
Gary Numan
Vince Clark
There are others... naturally. I am moved by kind of the off-beat sounds and naturally I love a good grand piano... still looking for a VST for that one for my "modern synth" setup. It is amazing where the tech is today and we owe it all to folks like Bob Moog! I like the idea personally of combining the analog with the digital to get the best of the older tech and still use the newest tech as well! People like Thomas Dolby have done that for a very long time.
Anyhow, just got the rig started and hopefully the setup will continue to grow in a good direction. I am only $1250 (USD) from completion of my home studio and then I figure I have the $10K or so to go on the synths I am seeking. This will be the slow part of the process.
Love the communities thoughts on the Virtual Synth idea, though personally, I think it is cool. It has made me like computing again and put the fun back in that I experienced in 1990 when I was just getting into computers. I suppose it is inevitable that our beloved vintage gear will wear out and there are good emulations, but like emulators for vintage computers, there is sometimes no substitute for the big iron (original boxes). An example is, (and maybe I am daft) but on my Arturia Mini V emulator, I can not seem to get the "cat" sound that the mini can do.
I am sure I just need to experiment more with the knobs... it is a very good virtual instrument though.