Music Scoring question

c'mon - sibelius is pretty decent! Lilypond is quite interesting though...

Why not try Musescore: This program is also FREE and uses any soundfont set you like to produce instrument sounds. In fact, the program points you to a few free, very nice soundfont sets. Scoring with this program is simple compared to either Sibelius or Finale (I know since I own Finale and I use Sibelius at the school where I teach).