I see that Nuendo's automation is more like Pro-Tools HD - somewhat, I've never used Nuendo so I can't tell you. The general GUI and performance of cubendo are very good IMO and they 'feel' more solid than Reaper,as I've said before on large track count projects everything stays silky smooth at all times where as reaper seems to bog down a bit with 100 tracks with zooming screen redraws.This is something Nuendo has worked on over the last few years as it was bad in V2. The track pre sets thing doesn't work as well as reaper,it can only remember certain types of tracks/setting where as reaper will remember any chain of Fx/track etc.

The automation is fantastic in Nuendo 4,this is one area it is different to cubase 4 ,but as I'm not a massive automation user it hasn't bothered me. I have Nuendo 4 with the instrument and surround pack and Cubase 4 and the routing still is miles behind Reaper.I upgraded to N4 hoping that the routing would be on par with Reaper so I could record the outputs of BFD more easily,it can be done but it's a long winded way compared to 'record outputs'

Nuendo 4 requirements