I use Ableton mostly for sound design for game projects. The ability to drag an audio file and manipulate its pitch, rotate it, speed it up or slow it down, add transposition modulation and stuff, is super handy and is designed much better than in most other DAWs. It's worth it just for that alone.
Here's what I'm referring to:
It's right there when you select a sample and it's the most convenient implementation out there.
RE: VST BLOGISODE #3 what's with Ableton?