I teach Sound Design and Audio Production at Duquesne University. I also produce for NPR, and professionally record classical music.
Our teaching lab has a lot of media software - I teach Sonar, Pro-Tools and Sound Forge. We also teach Logic in our Sound and Recording Program. There is absolutely no reason not to know each of those products reasonably well. In fact in many cases, I use Sonar, Pro-Tools and Sequoia in different phases of the same project. They are all tools and not in any way mutually exclusive of each other.
Can everyone afford to own all of the products? That is a matter of purpose. If your career is in audio - then that investment is appropriate. If you are an independent musician that will make demo's and / or create projects to be mixed and mastered elsewhere - your DAW choice is based on creativity and efficiency not standards.
Summary, I get this question all the time and I feel it is much easier to answer than it appears. At the University where I work, students can buy Pro-Tools, Sonar and Sound Forge all for less than $750 combined total - that is less than one semester of text books in the Law School - of which some of the books won't be used more than 25%. And I'm sure you know that currently AVID offers 3 years of free upgrades to Students. Not too shabby
-D
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