I got that cycle too...I saw it for $30 at Prex and decided the price was too low to pass up, and then Amazon dropped the price to $25. I already have the Jansons blu-ray set as well.
I'm always open to more Beethoven and Mahler and Bruckner and Sibelius, provided it's rewarding and interesting. What I'm not interested in is another regional European orchestra recording their live performances with a middling interpreter and putting them out. In an era of an incredible array of classical concerts from the major orchestra available for streaming, I'm not sure why I'd bother.
That's frankly part of the appeal of the Barenboim cycle - a major interpreter (like him or not - I heard him lead the Chicago Symphony in one of my favorite performances of the Beethoven 7th ever, to which the entire orchestra roared to its feet when it was done, so I'm a fan), with a solid orchestra, recorded in studio conditions, not a live recording with a patch session. In the early days of digital surround many of the majors recorded a cycle - Barenboim for Teldec/Warner, Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon (which was a surprising failure, something even Abbado recognized - he preferred his recordings on video from Rome), and Van Zweden's sleeper of a cycle, one of the first commercially released DSD recordings. Barenboim's came out clearly on top, until being challenged by a second wave that included Haitink and Vanska.
