This is one opinion, so please take it as such. I have had UAD cards in 2 machines so I have a working knowledge of some of the pluses and minuses. For me, the minuses have led me to bail on UAD(too much money and too much latency). The ONLY way to track with UAD plugins is to use Apollo as your interface, and the plugins, while great, will probably not make better recordings(that's on the talent and the engineer).
For plugin substitutes, there are tons of LA2A options. I like the Waves CLA-2A and the new Slate version, and still use SMACK!(Avid's LA2A) on every mix I do(pop/rock/country mostly). For an 1176, Waves and Slate cover that quite nicely too. For the Neve compressor, that might be tougher, but as with any single device, its not going to make or break a recording(again, my opinion
). Check out Plugin Alliance to see what DSP stuff they offer. For reverbs, Avid has a solid collection, and if Lexicon is your "go to", then get the Lexicon branded plugin package. I also like Avid SPACE with the Bricasti and Lexicon IR's I have, but mostly I use IK Multimedia's Classik Reverbs for Lexicon-style verb.
On a side note; I love the sound of an LA2A and had great success with the Warm Audio WA2A using it during recording. While I had everything required for using hardware inserts, I never did(beyond testing and verifying that it all worked). I just prefer the 100% recallability of keeping the mix ITB(in the box). Food for thought
