Any idea on what the current cost is? I presume there is also an annual maintenance cost?
Depends on what package you go with. And yes, there are annual maintenance fees to keep it current and continued access to support after the first year.
They're running a special on PCB Designer Standard right now for $299. It used to go for ~$2150 IIRC (MSRP is $620 if the $299 special wasn't available), so it's a decent offer. Seems they're making the real money on the maintenance fees as well as hope you'll add options as your needs grow.
Right now, I think Allegro is not worth it, unless you are working in a big team, with at least one expert in it.
Generating libraries and output files is a pain, and you need to work a lot on
basic things that is set by default in other EDA software. The fact that you have 200 different layers is also bad, and you dont get a gerber viewer to check your output. My collegue describet it as an "empty box, that lets you do a lot of things, but you need to configure it yourself", and I have to agree with it. Placing just a via is difficult, something that should be simple. Making footprints also. The 3D is very basic compared to Altium. A lot of things are very cumbersome.
Unless you want to learn how to route high end digital stuff, like GBit routers, Video cards or so, I dont think it is such a good software. It is made for companies, where separate people work on the schematic, library, layout and so on. For people, where 20 engines are working on the same project, and you need a RFM to get stapler. And if you want to be a layouter, a CID at a big firm, so be it, learn how to use it. Otherwise I would stick to Altium.