I just went through all of these choices. I built Joes 2006 machine. For software I would recommend Vectric Vcarve Pro. I searched all over the web becasue the price for Vcarve seemed like more than I wanted to spend for that. Now that I have it, I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Vcarve has enough drawing tools built in that I can do most of what I want without leaving the program. So far I have not found that I need a separate CAD program to draw, just draw in Vcarve and generate tool paths. It also will import most clipart and I find many things I want to cut available as clipart I can use. If it is vector clipart you can easily scale it to suit. They also have a free demo you can download and try before you buy.
http://vectric.com