Tradestation vs e-sig

Whould any one who's used these trading platforms give me some info?
I tried e-sig , I liked it...used charts and Market Profile.Costly

Can someone tell me about Tradestation:
1) Is it a stand alone like e-sig where you only have to rent the exchanges you want to trade or do you have to hook up IB or DTN or e-sig to get quotes?

2)Is it also a trade platform to execute trades (how does it measure Up?)what are commissions and margins on es

3)Is t8000 a better choice for the beginer, who's not interested in programming?

4)_ Can I get t-8000? or do I have to start with the current version?

5) Is it very good for candle stick charts

6) and is it reliable and the tech support consistent and very good?

Thank in advance for taking the time to answer my questions...

I've just done a quick search of the web to try and find a comparison table of eSignal and TradeStation for you but no luck - it doesn't appear that there is one. I can't really do one because I have never used TradeStation so my table would be slightly biased and possibly inaccurate. I would, however, love to see a table comparing the 2 products side by side from a couple of different perspectives.

For example, from these perspectives:
- The ES only trader that trades 20 contracts per month.
- The ES only trader that trades 200/2000 contracts per month.
- The forex only trader.
- The Stock only trader.

etc...