I can't point to a particular reason but for a long time I had been averse to Solarwinds. I'm not sure if it was that I considered them expensive for what they did, difficult to install or some other obscure reason.
Regardless, I've been trialing the latest versions for the full time contract I'm on currently. I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen so far. They seem to have expanded their offerings and now include modules such as Netflow Analysis, Config Management and App performance management.
More to come if we actually implement it but I think it might be a good contender for the $20-40k management platforms.