Yeah, there may be some improved software out there that I haven't had a chance to check out yet.
My opinion is based on software from about 5 years ago. Some of the software i used ended up getting out of sync halfway through the song.

The one thing I'd find to be a necessity right now is to have unlimited tracks to record with (or at least 128 or more).
I've rarely done a song that hasn't required using over 100 tracks to space out the instruments. Not necessarily having 100 tracks going at once, but the ability to assign separate, stereo tracks to each instrument so that you can easily keep track of what instrument is on each track.
Some lower end software limits you to 24 tracks of audio so you end up re-using several tracks for multiple instruments.

I tend to record every instrument in stereo so that I have the later option of spreading the stereo spectrum. The other necessity for multiple extra tracks is so that you have spare tracks for things like room acoustics or printing CPU intensive things like reverb permanently to their own tracks instead of having multiple plug-ins running at once.

Nothing wrong with starting small though. I began recording on a Fostex 250 4 track analogue recorder for the first 5 years and it was invaluable to learning how to bounce tracks down and make the most out of what you had to work with.