Well, I finally took the leap and bought Prepar3d academic. Here are some screenshots of my first test flight in the Bonanza around the Las Vegas area at dusk. It'll be fun trying out the settings and tweaking this...
Its completely separate from FSX but its based on some of the legacy coding, so the file structure is very similar. It also uses a lot more of your graphics card than fsx. I think I'll use P3D for flying low and slow because it processes the autogen so much better. FSX (with the DX10 Fixer) is still my choice for airliners. I'm eager to see how P3D develops as a team is actively working on it.