Quote - *I am thinking about trying out DS4.5 to check out some of its new features, but the thought of having to reinstall all of my content is causing me to put it off. *

I updated to 4.5 Pro about a month ago, and have not had any problems with it of any real significance. All of my installed content, in both the DAZ Studio and the Poser formats, are all in the places I had them before and working correctly. When I first opened DS 4.5 Pro, some of my content did not appear in the Library. After closing and re-opening the app., it had reappeared where it belongs.

I think the reason the content remains installed is because it is actually stored in folders on your hard drive, not in the application itself. The application is written in a way that allows it to read specified directories that lead it to the content you want to load into your scene. You may notice when you load a content product, the words "Importing ___________" appears in the loading panel. Some things load so fast you do not have time to read the text in the loading panel, but others such as Victoria 4.2 have so much data attached to them that the panels stay onscreen long enough to read what is in them. 

As for the Starter Essentials, I agree that you need to install them even though the same products found in the previous version are found in this one. This will ensure that your Starter Essentials content is up to date and user ready for the new version of DAZ Studio. If you have certain extra morphs for the Genesis figure, (like head, face, hand, foot, and body morphs), the installation of the Starter Essentials package will ensure that they work as they are designed to work. If it does not, I suggest downloading the latest versions of those morphs and re-installing them. Of course you will need to uninstall the originals and delete them so that they do not interfere with the new version installation process.

I must say the new version is awesome. Practically every plugin is active. The AniMate 2 plugin stays active for just 30 days, unless you have the pay version already installed. If you downloaded 4.5 Pro in the last month, you should not need the free updates for the plugins. This will save a lot of time and trouble.

I hope this helps.