Just a few more thoughts after using it a bit.

I genuinely think that the slow down is with a Sony Camera format we had on the team that causes problems wherever it goes in the mac world. Other than that the 'final' cut of the school project looks pretty good and was fun to edit overall.

Set-backs? FCPX crashed a lot but after a while I realised that the error message referred to 'Audio Hijack Server'. I wonder if Rogue Amoeba are to blame with their brand of under-the-hood tricks?

Nested sequences are good but I still don't really get how to expand or shorten them from within a nest. 

Motion has an amazing feature for replicating human gestures! It seems to work pretty well - am testing it out. Anything to free me from learning tedious key-framing graphs. Human motion is the best motion. 

The first edit of a 15 minute film exported to 13 gigs. I then did a H264 1080p version and it was 1.5 gigs. Even that took a couple of hours to upload to vimeo plus. Fun.

My main feelings about how FCPX will boost stuff is in getting more quick experimental projects out of the door. The previous version of Motion never seemed to work without major pain on a 17" MBP. I did a pop video for some students but it was a real hassle. I am hoping that these feelings will be something from the past now on. 

It's all about the creativity man - give me some flexible and quick tools for playing about with lots of interesting and intriguing ideas.

I know that lots of people are moaning about various things¹ but my early feelings about this new version are that it is a pleasure. Yes it has crashed a couple of times, but the general feel is one of joy. I am editing a multi camera project for a school related event. It isn't a pro project. It does have a potential nightmare in it's bones: multiformat flip and SLR sources being imported. In the original FCP this would have caused no end of hassle, but in this version I am able to get on with the happy process of editing. So far I have just been enjoying it.

¹for a really helpful view on the issue have a look at this: http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/final_cut_pro_x_backlash