[octatonic]

It is all how you use them and some are better than others.
I've got a good collection of hardware synths and they all get used for different things.
I'll use a bunch of soft synths also- I really like Albino, Blue, ES2, TDM Virus.
Some of the soft synths sound better than the hardware.
FM7 is great.
Absynth is wicked.

In hardware-land I like my Nord 2, Waldorf Pulse and my collection of quasimidi synths.
I love the Yamaha SY vector control and just took delivery of an EMU Orbit which is great for ****ed up loops.

One thing I like though is now a lot of s/h synths sell for about the same as a plugin and being a gear slut I just love buying the boxes.

I don't think you can say hardware is better than software or vice versa- it is all useful in a variety of ways- you just gotta get amongst it and use the ****ers.