I also tried Helix Native, though I have not tried it with third party IR's. I did not like it much, definitely not for $399.
I recently purchased a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Interface, and frankly, I think some of the amp sims for it sound fantastic. While I was not overly excited about the Friedman and Fuchs amps, the Marshall 2204 and the Engl Retro (especially now that they added Unison Support) just sound stellar. I would say quality wise as good as Axe Fx II.
So, I was considering going that route. And started thinking... well, these two amp sims alone are already 350 Euros. I would probably look to purchase one of the other Engl's or the Plexi, and another one for clean sounds (there the Fuchs amps really shine), bringing it up to ca. 1000 Euros for five amps.
And when recording, I could either not use Unison Technology or not do reamping because Unison can only send the "wet" signal to DAW, the DI signal is impossible. For me, as a guy with a demanding, non-music related job, and a family with 2 little kids, and the resulting almost zero time for practicing, it is important to edit a lot and do timing corrections in the DAW, which really does not work on the amplified singal (at least for anything with distortion), so having the DI signal and being able to reamp is crucial for me. So that means no Unison for recording, but without it I really find the sound is worse.
Long story short... after I read here that a plugin is not on the horizon, I ended up sorting out a used Axe Fx II XL. I sold my Mark 2 a few months ago (in hopes of the plugin, in fear of no more firmware updates due to the Memory size, and due to a temporary shortage of song writing ideas) for 1600 Euros. I purchased this XL for 1950 Euros. So this is a unit that is three years younger than mine was, and a "higher" generation with the bigger memory size, so I basically paid 350 Euros for a Mark 2 to XL upgrade and a three years rejuvenation treatment. I can live with that very well.
So, instead of 1000 Euros for five amps from UA, I spent 1950 Euros for ca. 100 amps (condensing the ca. 250 models together since often there are several models for one amp). And with proper reamping ability. I think I made a good choice...
I will have the unit in about two weeks here in my house (location is 4 hours away from here, but a friend of mine who lives in that area picks it up and brings it with him next time he visits), and then, dear Fractal Audio... I'M BACK!!!!!
And woe to you if you release a plugin two weeks later...