I've used virtualbox, vmware player, and workstation 6 for personal (and hobby) use only. i wouldn't know why you would need to upgrade to a $119 versiin of vmware when you can download and use vmware player and virtualbox for free.
The only benefit of workstation 6 is a bit more support for resizing partitions, cloning, and setting up peripherals. You can do most of those things in vmware player and virtualbox, but it is a little more work. There is no graphics support in Workstation 6 and vmware player has better graphics. i was able to play XP games in vmware player, but not in W6 or virtualbox.
BEWARE!! Your supported OSes, both host and guest, are extremely limited in W6. Make sure the OSes you need are supported NOW http://www.parallels.com/products/workstation/ because i get the feeling that W6 will NEVER EVER support any other OS than those that are listed now. it hasn't changed in the last 6 months and all the linux distros are years old except Debian.
Workstation 6 is only $6.99 so it is not really that big of a deal, but i'd say it is a complete waste of money. it is so cheap because IMHO it is a dead product and parallels has no plans to support windows 8 or more recent linux versions. My guess is that sooner or later Parallels will release Workstation 7 and that version will support Windows 8, but not W6.
One other thing. This Forum here in parallels is completely dead. there is a lot more activity and discussion in virtualbox and vmware forums.
Last edited: Dec 13, 2012