I bought EQ6 and then upgraded to EQ7 as soon as that came out. I was told by people who have EQ5 that were buying EQ6 or 7 upgrade from me in January 2011 at my booth at the Kingsland Quilt show that there were issues with it that made it hard to use that they knew were corrected in EQ6. I took a workshop taught by Barb Vlack (she wrote one of the how to books for EQ6) through my local quilt guild on EQ6 a couple of months after I got it and that was real helpful. I find EQ7 easier to use and it has more options than EQ6, so in my opinion is much easier to use and worthwhile to upgrade.