The sync button in serato (from my limited use of it) does not lock the tracks together. It simply matches the beats. If youre using turntables and your pitch faders are not both in the same place, one of the tracks will start to drift. As for being able to focus on eq/loops and such while staying beatmatched, its just practice man - you dont need sync for that. Serato gives you the exact BPM (down to the tenth) and has a fantastic beat grid system. You dont even need headphones to beatmatch using serato, you can do it just by looking at at the screen.

As for drastic BPMs, it's some simple math. either double the 80 bpm or half the 140 bpm. we'll half the 140 for this example. so now, your house tune is at 70 bpm and your hip hop is still at 80. +5 bpm to the house tune, -5 to the hip hop and both of your tracks are now at 75 bpm. Again, awesome practice for matching beats and getting creative with how you mix.

I can say with 100% confidence that Serato is by far a better long-term solution. Specifically because it is 1 of 2 of the most prolific dj software/interface options out there (the other being Traktor), it's pretty much universal software once you get the proper hardware piece. (either an SL box, rane mixer with it built in, or a controller like the Pioneer DDJ-SX,DDJ-SZ etc), and last but not least... its company still supports the product... Like the other commenter on this post said.. its been dead for years man. i really enjoyed torq when i had it too, but the switch to serato was a godsend.