Thanks for that great summary.  I do have a fairly recent edition of Pinnacle Studio.  It seems very sluggish in some areas, maybe when handling large projects.  I just haven't taken to it, it feels like I can't get in and get the control I want.  But it is a good fallback right now.

 Sounds like Edius is a pretty strong candidate for a good all-around editor.  Some people speak highly of Sony Vegas, but it's hard to get an exact read on whether it really is both powerful and efficient to use.