Silhouette vs. Cricut

So i have a dilemma!

I have outgrown my Slice.  While i like my Slice a lot because its light, doesn't take up much room in my scrap area and the design cards are cheaper than cricut, but it only cuts up to 4 inches and i can't weld letters together or create my own wordings.   So my thought was to sell my slice and all the accessories (which is a lot, retail i have over $1200).  Right now i have it listed locally but if anyone is interested let me know and im sure we can work out a deal. 

So i had it all worked out....

My birthday was coming up, i was going to ask hobby lobby/Micheals gift cards and between the money for my slice and gift cards i would be able to purchase the expression and gypsy.  I did my research, made a list of the design cards i wanted and other accessories.  Then i realized that cricut's design software is not compatible with MAC.  Not good Not good!  Ok no biggie, i would just load the software on my work laptop.   Then at my local Micheals NSD crop a fellow cropper introduced me to the "sure cuts a lot" software, which is MAC compatible.  Great forget cricut's software i will just use this instead.  Well come to find out SCAL is not compatible with the new cricut expression 2 and cricut is in the process of using SCAL.  once again NOT GOOD!   So im back to having to use only design cards.  I started pricing those and wow they are $90.  Good thing was my LSS lets you rent design cards and have cricut's you can use when you attend crops.  Figured i would design on my gypsy and cut with their cards when i went for the crops.  Sounds like a plan!

Ok onto the other side....Silhouette.

A couple of months ago craftysteals.com had offered a silhouette bundle and a bunch of accessories and their steal of the day.  The price was actually about 1/2 off but didn't really know what the silhouette was so i moved on.  Well two weeks ago american crafts ran a week long blog posts about their designs and the silhouette.  I was intrigued!  I started researching the silhouette and realized it does just about everything the cricut does. It only cuts up to 9 inches where as the cricut cuts up to 12.  I doesn't need design cards and their design software is free and MAC compatible.  Wohoo!  You can import your own design (in .gsd format of course......i will be learning how to do this soon) and use any true type font.  You can purchase their design separately for $0.99 instead of buying the whole design cards.   Downfall with no design cards you now need a laptop to cut.  Not really a big one, but it would be great if there was an ipad "app for that"!

So here is my dilemma...... do i spend the money on the so praised cricut and have the convenience of my LSS and crops or do i get the silhouette and be the odd ball out.

Anyone out there in blog land who owns both and can vouch for either of these wonderful machines?   The plan is to have something purchased and learned by the end of the July in time for my LSS Weekend Camp Crop.