Uplifting trance is a very difficult genre to produce in my view. Granted, no EDM is particularly easy to produce. There are so many elements going on, that you're job to produce a clean sounding track can't be de-emphasized. It would probably be best to invest in the best reverb and delay VSTs you can possibly find if you do uplifting. EQing skills are essential to uplifting trance, because of all the melodies and the tendency towards sounds that are "fat" or "big" or "massive." The compromise of a big sound is that it clutters up your listening space, too.
You simply have to move from the ground up, I think. I still use GarageBand as a sequencer, but it really doesn't matter to me at the moment, because a lot the stuff I use are based in synthesizers and getting the right percussion samples. As my main synthesizer, I use the brilliantly diverse and able (and free) 3x oscillator Alphakanal Automat:
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1552.html I, for one, cannot believe it is free, given how versatile it is, and I don't understand why people spend $100 on a synthesizer that can do just the same. I've tried demos of VSTs you have to purchase, and the sounds are really unimpressive compared to some free gear. There are a lot of people out there who want you to think you need to spend a lot of money to get what you want. I wouldn't write them all off, but I'm just saying, be careful. I do eventually plan to move up my list, and move into something more like Logic Pro, but finances are the main constraint right now. Barring my ignorance, I still slightly feel that a lot of the talk about the right DAWs (Logic, Cubase, Live, etc.) is overrated. I hear tracks made in programs like FL (Octagen & Arizona - Starburst, to my great surprise!) that are absolutely gorgeous, while some of these aspiring producers shell out hundreds on a real workhorse DAW and their tracks sound like crap. The guts of your talent will be how well you turn those knobs on the synthesizers and practicing on your effects chains, and click it until you get a sound that you can call your own, but is still great to listen to.
Veritas curat. Vertias vos liberabit.