I too have been using Encore for more than 20 years as a school educator and arranger. My hope is that the new version will have better part extraction, which includes changes made to the score in real time. As it stands it takes hours to get the parts readable and logically laid out.
I have owned and used Encore since 1995. Don, I am thrilled that you are supporting Encore again. I agree with @jaz regarding extracting parts. My response to the inadequacies has been to send “score notes” documents. I send my score, parts, and score notes ahead since I fly/drive in just in time for the dress rehearsal many times. In the score notes, I instruct the conductors and managers to direct the orchestra in annotating their parts to add the dynamics (that were supposed to be extracted from the top line but didn’t extract). The score and parts are the first impressions that an orchestra has of me as a featured soloist since I arrange and orchestrate my concert pieces. I hope that your upgrades will help me to resolve this issue.
The most important addition for me would be if the new Encore could edit a part and have the edit reflected in the score. I left Encore in 2020 after many years of beta testing Encore to go to Notion by Presonus, because it handled the two-way editing and part extraction so well.
I don’t know if Encore 6 will handle part extraction/export the same or not but it will give you a point of reference. For now, SonicSores and PassportDesigns will be separate entities but Encore will gain some of Overture’s functionality (not VI handling yet). There is also talk of Overture being upgraded to open Encore 5 files. We’ll see. Anyway, you should check it out.