that's true, after making the question I thought that mainly the most hardcore guys stick to pd-van, because it's easier for them to adapt it to their needs, and there's more tradition with self-programming (enhancing the core package). but I would dare say that for many non-developper-users, pd-ext is much more used than pd-van. pd-ext is a couple of decimals behind pd-van (and the windows version even more, as the disk for it is out of order since last summer), but HC doesn't have a grant to work on pd-ext.