Perhaps if there was another 6 months on the development cycle we would
have got the After Effects wanted and frankly we, as loyal customers,
deserve as we've all parted with thousands and thousands in cash for Adobe
products.




Doesn't work this way. Trust me, if you gave it another 6 months, there would just be as many loose ends. People never get enough.

Not meaning to play the bad guy again, but over those last few weeks I've ****** off quite a few people on various forums trying to explain some of the intricacies of software development and I'm still extremely frustrated/ aggravated/ puzzled/ angry 'cos one never seems to get through to them. In short: There ain't such a thing as a "simple switch/button/option" - it all requires someone to get his hands dirty in the code and a new feature has sometimes very deep repercussions on existing ones. Every developer must weigh these things carefully and even if some things seem to fall in place more or less inescapeably and logically, it does not necessarily mean that at a given point the developer/ company will be able to allocate resources and manpower to a specific task.

Specific to Adobe: Yes, I, too, sometimes think their plans for world conquest get in the way of doing "brilliant" software that excites you as opposed to "okay" software for your day to day business, but you have to understand their position. For example if one guy on the Photoshop makes a mistake and hoses up the file format spec, this will ripple like a shockwave through every product that also uses Photoshop files or components. Now count the apps in that category and imagine the chaos that would ensue if such a thing really happened... You could suddenly have a few hundred thousand or even million users with useless Master Collections screaming "bloody murder" on the streets. Therefore they have to be careful.

And let's be honest: the products are improving, even if a specific cycle may not provide any incentive to upgrade to a specific subset of users. That's just the way it is, but even then Adobe could be counted among the better guys. Unlike many other software vendors they don't force you to run every update just to be eligible the next time. You can upgrade older program versions if you skipped at the same cost as you would from the last version, and that's not the worst of ideas in my world, where I as (also) a 3D artist experience different procedures if I want to keep my tools on that end current...

Mylenium