Finale seems to be the standard and a bit easier in its update. Notewriter, a graphics program, was tediously slow but flexible, and was responsive to revealing notational personality in a piece. Doubting I had the patience at this point to master Finale, I have chosen Mosaic, though worrying about its Professional Composer ancestry-for when I have performed from scores notated with Pro Comp these have often looked awkward and even unmusical in flow and grouping of notes. My initial results with Mosaic look better to me than Pro Comp scores but Mosaic has problems. He uses Finale and is adept, steeped in the Schirmer style manual, and other copyist grooming.
Alternatives are, so far, too costly to consider.
This is quoted from an internet discussion between Mark Gresham and David Pannett, May, 1993. By 'engraving standards' I mean those criteria of placement, spacing and style that are accepted in the traditions of music engraving that have developed over the past few hundred years, and which are learned as part of that craft, passed on from master craftsman to apprentice. It goes far beyond getting a note head on the right line of the staff. . . Other complaints, from professional copyists, deal with difficulties or inabilities to handle common-practice scoring techniques, such as French scoring, and even changing instrument names on a single staff, much less splitting staves, and 'ossia' or other 'abbreviated' staves that do not encompass the entire width of the page. That's only scratching the surface.