I guess it depends on weather you are a plug and play player or one who likes to fiddle. I am both, and that's why I love the Vbass - 99% of the time I'm pretty much bypassing it, using it as a pre, and the rest of the time I use the patches for great sims of certain basses. Granted, it took a while to get these spot on, but the unit is so powerful I put my faith in the fact that I COULD get what I wanted, I just had to find how to get it. Once I had them, I stored them, and use basically 8 patches in total, and haven't been near the settings of those since the day I finished them over a year ago. So, now it's truly plug 'n' play - and the best thing is that because it's a stereo output it sounds awesome through my IEMs and with my two channel power amp I can send the lows and highs to different cabs when using synths which sounds much better.
Definitely one to try IMO, and I don't think the VB99 is much easier to use and though it may have a couple of benefits, I don't think they are worth the extra price tag. When I can get one for £500ish I may be tempted to change. I actually prefer the form factor of the floor unit anyway.
To be honest, I'm really not into effects at all. I mainly bought this thing because I can now do a very good impression of other basses from my one instrument, and it doesn't hurt to have all these effects in the same box if I decide to mess about. It makes my rig and my setup much simpler. The only thing it's missing is an AUX input for practice, bit annoying having to use a mixer with it.
Cheers
V-ped