I use Cubase for VST plugins and instruments and Cakewalk from Sonar for midi, I record my keyboard midi out with Cakewalk, it's more user friendly and on Cakewalk I can change instruments on my keyboard, with Cubase I can't do that.
I can record audio with Reaper without noise.
I use Sibelius too for writing scores as it's all there, one of the best software for doing that, Finale is also good. I use Sibelius to write down some parts, export to midi and I have the correct values to quantize something I need, like tremolo...it's very hard to do this with mouse, but on Sibelius you just put that tremolo sign, export to midi and voila!