Welcome to VIC!
A couple of things have stopped me just going for the EWQL. One, read lots of people have problems with the Play engine being sluggish/problematic.
This was certainly true in the past. With the long-promised PLAY 5 update, I don't experience those issues anymore. So, don't be dissuaded by anti-PLAY posts from before 2017 (you may even find I wrote some of them, haha).
Two, a lot of reviews and people seem to criticize the brass.
I'm surprised, the brass is by far the most perennial of the libraries in my view. I still hear people use it all the time in mockups. It's true that there are several libraries out there that try to be even better than HW Brass, but they're all over $500. Also, even if you get one or more of those libraries at some future time, you'll still find uses for HWB.
If anything, I think the
woodwinds are widely acknowledged as the Hollywood series's weak point. Take a close listen to the mockups and see if you're comfortable/happy with the woodwind sound.
The strings also have a very specific character baked into the sound. It's by no means a "neutral" string sound. So have a listen to those mockups too and see if you like the tone.
Three, I don't have capacity for Diamond, so it would be Hollywood Orchestra Gold which are 16-bit samples and only on 1 mic position. Any thoughts on any of that?
16-bit samples are not really that bad at all
Having only one mic position is more problematic - ideally you'd want multiple mics to be able to mix specific sounds based on the genre or mood of your music. But this isn't much of a difference from your other library choice, Albion - the nature of Spitfire's recording setup means you don't get a tremendous amount of variability, it's more like "This sounds rather dry and it's in a nice church" vs "This sounds very wet and it's in a nice church." (obviously "nice church" is a huge understatement for the sound of AIR Studios
)
IMO if you are just starting out, EastWest Composer Cloud is offering you a tremendous value. For those of us who already own their best libraries there's not as much value in the cloud. They have a lot of libraries besides the HW series but those have aged rather poorly.
Also, before you buy, check out "Berlin Orchestra Inspire." It's another "starter" style product that's really good.