Can't you hold down ctrl and drag the edge how you want for time stretching?
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/04/reason-7s-new-tools-for-slicing-stretching-retiming-audio-qa-tutorial-vid/
Oh yea it's difficult to stay legal for sure. I kinda feel like if you are learning or its a total hobby then whatever. But if you want to make money or be a real business then it's time to go legit.
Ha yea I'm about to start a huge upgrade. Also I'm trying to keep my software 100% legal so that's costs a bit. I also subscribe to Adobe cc and it's amazing.
Reason rack extensions, waves plugins, sound ware etc. computer hardware. They sort of thing. I'm in a weird income thing right now that I have basically a few thousand of free money a year because of tax stuff so I literally spend it or lose it.
Digital is superior almost across the board to vinyl. Digital has higher headroom and a wider spectrum of frequency it can reproduce. Now I don't mean .mp3 files. I mean high quality uncompressed digital audio. I do still love listening to records though.