The intro discount on the Vertex Cerebra is over. For the full price you may as well wait until it is out of beta. Plus I'm not sure that they are shipping any more units until the product is out of beta. I went this route because I had the opportunity to switch to a more modern, more feature rich, brand new controller at no cost to me by selling my six or seven year old Apex classic. Also, I've always wanted to try the Cerebra. The manufacturing of the product is high end and the display unit is awesome. All the outlets are relay outlets. And it comes with a lot of extras that on the Apex you need to purchase separate modules. Lastly, I didn't like the plastic look or feel of the new Apex and I had a bunch of probes and didn't need to pay for new ones. All of that being said, Neptune Sytems probably has the most resources available to offer in terms of customer service, the largest customer base, the most advanced customer forums, the most additional products to offer, and the best on line controller interface. But, I also think Vertex will catch up.
No experience with RKE or any of the other smaller companies that offer feature rich controllers.
The only other controller I would consider besides Neptune Systems Apex and Vertex Cerebra would be the GHL Profilux.