Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

I'm having problems using Akoustik with Logic 8.  Logic is super stable on all my songs unless I have Akoustik instantiated.  Then, Logic crashes about 20% of the time, and if it doesn't crash, when I quit, it doesn't fully quit.  The windows go away, and Logic disappears from the menu bar, but is still showing as launched in the Dock, so I have to quit, then force quit to get it completely gone.  Does anyone else have these problems?

NI seems to have discontinued Akoustik as a standalone application (vs. bundled; not vs. plugin), so it seems the version I have (1.1.3.001) is the latest.  I'm not really interested in upgrading Logic to v.9, just yet.

Thanks for any advice.

Gregory