I have been through a number of SDRs - Softrock, RTLSDR, HackRF, and more recently I have a Red Pitaya (http://redpitaya.com/) and am ICOM 7300 (http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/7300/defau...), which is a traditional looking radio with SDR at its core.

The flexibility offered by doing all the work in software is ground-breaking... really only limited by imagination.