Weird, I for one was really hoping they'd do something like this. You're right that you can do everything with the hardware, but I think you're missing the fact that it will massively improve workflow.
I have a ton of unfinished songs that I can't continue on easily because I don't remember which presets I used, and if/how I tweaked them when recording. So I'll have to re-record all the guitars if I want to finish them. Helix Native will solve that problem for me. It also has other benefits - if I want a little more or less distortion on a certain guitar track, that now becomes easy. I know this was already possible with re-amping, but that's a bit of a chore.
I found out about this by googling "helix vst". What I was initially hoping for was just an editor-as-a-plugin, just so it could recall settings when opening a project, but this is even better.
It stings a little bit that I bought the Helix Rack (+ controller), and will now use it a lot less because I currently don't perform, but when I think about it, it's not that bad, since my workflow will become a lot better, and I'll probably still use the Helix as a recording interface, and for zero latency monitoring while recording. And it's still a freaking cool piece of gear that I'm happy to have bought.
I really can't wait. Hope it will be out soon, as I was planning to record a couple of songs next week. If not, I will probably record the dry signals, so I have them ready for when the plugin is released.
I obviously wouldn't mind getting the plugin for free, but I'm happy with the discount :)
