Thanks for your reply.
Yes, I figured that PD17 projects cannot be edited in PD15. What I meant was starting brand new projects in PD15 (to avoid the waveform problem).
It is HIGHLY unlikely that I will be spending any more money to upgrade to PD18/365 simply to resolve a bug in CL's code that should have been addressed for ALL of their customers. Taking care of the customers, I think, makes good business sense (even if it means they need to agree to upgrade people for free to eliminate the problem).
I totally understand that older versions will not get any additional updates/patches. And by "updates/patches" I mean updates that ADD new features or ENHANCE all ready working features. In this case, this is a bug, plain and simple. It needs to be fixed for the customer because the customer's expectations is that the application will function correctly. In this case, the application does not function correctly, therefore CL needs to make it right for the customer in whatever manner they deem the most efficient (new patch or free upgrade).
I truely hope that CL does the right thing here. Up until this point, I have enjoyed using PD to edit the videos I post to my YouTube channel. I started with the trial version (that I found out about from an ad in the box for the external USB DVD drive I bought for my laptop). Within 1 hour of using the trial version, I bought PD15 online and starting learning/editing/posting. I upgraded to PD17 as a result of special pricing.
I prefer having the appication local on my hard drive rather than in the cloud. I don't like the idea of being totally dependent on my cable company's internet connection in order to work on my projects. Maybe I don't know enough about 365, but I'm assumming to use it you have to be online.
Here's hoping CL does the right thing.