Hi Hobby

,
My experience is limited to low altitude slow flying, simply because I mainly do VFR in a dH Moth, Piper Warrior or similar.
I bought REX, and it installed well.
It does indeed enhance particularly the sky, allowing post card picture dawns and sunsets with tropical exaggerations of colours.
You can:
- alter the appearance of water, some effects only being worthwhile at 30,000 feet (eg large ocean rollers) which look pretty weird up close.
- control cloud appearance more than in FS itself.
- build a combination of effects and save your favourite.
To be honest, my feeling was that the improvement in FS9 skies over FS98 was so great that REX merely gave another layer of icing.
If you want to make eye-watering screenshots or videos, you will probably need it.
If you are doing local flying, it's probably better to put dosh into detailed local scenery.
If you want to pick a situation, give me the exact details and I'll set up the same using REX, then post a detailed screenshot on my web page; that way we won't waste CBFS space, and won't blow your email limit. You can just see it there.
Enjoy your retirement. I'm in the same position myself.

One tip that helps our finances - make estimated fortnightly instalments on all the utility bills, then square off when the actual bill comes in.
In Australia I use BILLPAY to pay direct from my bank.
ATB