Phil - The sampler can load wavs and aiff files too, you're just clicking on the wrong part to load the sample. Only if you click on the load button on the left will it only load .smp patch files. If you click on the folder above the blue screen on the sampler you can load most all sound files.
DSane - Reason is dope, best part is, it can be rewired into cubase, so even though you can't record audio in reason and have midi outs in reason, you can load it up to be slaved to cubase as a module through rewire, and still use the shit such as reason's drum machine, fx, subtractor module, sampler, etc. The automation in Reason is dope too, ANYTHING can be automated and it's easy to do. I love reason, and I'm waiting for the new version 2.0 with the improved sampler and new modules/fx.
If you'd like, I'll shoot you a copy, hit me up (925)250-0299
Ghost Ryder - The MPC is tight, but I love the control you get with Reason. It'd be coo to hook up the MPC to control Reason via MIDI, but then again, that'd be quite a waste, I think a good combo would be to use the MPC with cubase and reason. I'm using my Kurzweil K2600s with Cubase and Reason.
ill3k - the next release WILL suport sf2 (from what I hear)