I was very wary of Roon to start and my system was Roon Ready for at least 5 years before I tried it. The reason being I did not want to invest in a Roon Core.
I started using it because I was impressed by the Innuos Mk3 machines, which provide an ethernet data link that has isolation transformers and is galvanically isolated. Along with its other features, it provides an ultra-clean data stream. It means you can have a wired connection without using usb, although the usb is optimised with its own linear power supply.
Initially I had 2 zones, now about 6.
I was already using a superb software platform (Auralic Lightning) and came to Roon with very low expectations. My experience was that its functionality and features grew on me quite slowly.
Paul made his opinion about Roon and Octave very clear here.
Octave Questions - #73 by Paul**
It is possible to have a completely closed system independent of any third party software, but its not a server, it’s a streamer. If Octave links to any external network store, it is dependent on that operating system and data indexing applications like Minimserver.
Anyway, Roon is extremely robust, mine has never crashed in 2 years, and with updates, as long as you keep a copy of your core, you can restore to an earlier version.