As a casual user since Sonar 5 I found my moments filled with frustration, curses, and head scratching.... zillions of hours spent in a quandry when all I wanted to do is write songs and let creativity flow...and in those special moments of ahhh ha!....crash! It did NOT encourage my creative juices to flow...Then, X happened and I cringed at a whole new thing... then fell in love.
 
I really do love the evolution of the X series... while still somewhat oblique at times, I can always find an instant answer in a couple minutes and generally end up going, "oh, that's cool! and that makes sense!"  Any hugely powerful tool with a million possible approaches has a learning curve but it's way more joyful and rewarding to me than earlier versions... plus it is stable, workflow begs me to keep going because I'm enjoying the creative endeavour, and  the intuitive power of many much improved tools is both fluid and effecient once I figure them out... which is a constant process for a poor brain retention critter like me...
 
Want console folders to hide my 70 friggin orchestral templates, a universal "hide everything that's empty" button, multiple console sends (all that friggin' unused space I want to use!), and better automation drawing tools among many things but I'm in LOVE with my DAW for the first time ever!
 
Brought up 8.5 one time last year...glad it's still there for you but I don't see many sticking with it...Indeed, I remember when it came out and I began shuffling back and forth...and then...less and less...
 
Maybe if I were one of the heavy power users I'd feel differently... however, I think all the cool stuff like comping/screensets gives me real creative powers I never imagined before!
 
 

I think your experience Vastman is typical of many. You express it well. When X1 was released this forum exploded. There very few that saw the benefits and understood what CW was doing. When the uproar settled down after some patches and moving toward X2 users began to see how well CW had done their job. The Skylight GUI was a huge departure from the icon based Sonar we had known so well but it proved far faster to get things done with.
 
Contrary to what has been posted here there were many that did come back with very positive postings expressing regret with how they had bashed X1.   
 
Here right now the vast majority here are very much pleased with the X series and would not go back to pre X.
Yes, it will take some getting used to. Yes, you will have to re-learn things that you had already learned, and yes you will find it is very much worth it to do so. 
 
One thing that has not been talked about are those that are coming from a very old version. Sonar has evolved over the years to be nothing like it was when it first appeared. Sonar XL, though at the time it was cutting edge, is a brain dead version compared to later versions.  No 64 bit anything. No creating buses on the fly (you had to restart Sonar after adding a new buss). No Inspector of any sort. No Groove clips. No freezing. No Synth rack.  The list is endless as the the evolution of Sonar. With that and things like the smart tool which is a pre X idea it could be very difficult for someone to come from Sonar 1 or 2 to adjust to how Sonar has changed even without Skylight.
 
I see some of this as feature shock. A massive adjustment must be made to Sonar even without X.  I look at it as an opportunity to get up to date and at the same time learn a new and very powerful new GUI.
 
No one will say it wont be taxing and will often be full of frustration but the core abilities and features are still there.
They are just better implemented. Plus new features that would not work well with the old GUI are now simple to do.
 
Give it time and a little effort and you will be rewarded.     

mudgel
The frustration comes from insisting that the X series must still work like pre X Sonar. That's just not going to happen. The X series is the present reality.

I respectfully disagree, Michael.  As James, the OP, mentioned:

jabdo56...have all been hamstrung with modifier keys and arcane menus, and my productivity has suffered...

I for one hate having to go to the HUD to change tools when editing.  (I do not have the Tools Module in the CB because it takes too much space which I need for more desirable modules.)  The X series has introduced more steps to get things done.  Even if it is just one step more than before, that is no improvement for a user's workflow.  And that is James' point.  We are not trying to make X work like 8.5.  Rather, as was long requested, we expected SONAR's workflow to improve so we may get things done quickly, more efficiently.  Obviously, the Bakers have been working on this since X1, but I think the direction to improve workflow has been shifted out of priority for, yes, dare I say it, new (some clunky) features.
 
This time, since the Bakers are taking more time with the next version of SONAR (if it will still be called SONAR), I hope that the core features and workflow (those lingering bugs) will get the attention and resolve needed.
 
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
 
Kind regards,
 
Living Room Rocker

Each Edit Tool has a keyboard shortcut. Also H will bring up the Hud. You don't need to have the tool control bar module showing. 

FWIW, I never have to switch tools - the Smart Tool does all that I need, and more.

I think perhaps the single greatest weakness of Sonar X series is not a bad feature or missing feature, but rather the lack of a big obvious friendly "Get Started", not tucked away on a website, but in the program itself.
 
The real fact of the matter is that you can learn about how to use the Smart tool and how the envelope editing now works, and most of the other new fundamentals in far less than an hour, and you'll be up and flying. But without some prompting, that's not how users typically approach applications. People are more likely to trial-and-error it, and when familiar functions have been moved to new places, there's some inevitable frustration.
 
It's like when you take someone who's only ever used a Mac and put them on Windows (or vice-versa). Basic functions seem be either missing or stupidly designed, when they're just different.
 
I think the X series design is fundamentally better, myself. But I think it can be fairly said Cakewalk didn't do a great job of helping people transition.

I don't blame cakewalk for not helping people transition. For me, upgrading every year, my learning curve has never been over steep.

I do use the tool menu. I thought it was T not H. I sometimes use it to select my draw type. I usually revert to smart tool with F5.

I have mapped frequently used things like bounce to clips, tracks, and fade clips to key chords.

Use of console (edit I meant control bar hide) hide and full screen and multi dock give me much better use of space. I rarely use screen sets.

I've been enthusiastic about home music production for many, many years and tried over and over to get started but failed.  I finally managed to get a small measure of proficiency with Project5 when it came out because it was easier to use.  As a consequence I then went back to it's big brother - Sonar 8.5, to take advantage of the additional features and power.  Nope!  Couldn't get my head around it.  Too difficult (and I'm not computer illiterate!).
 
Finally X1 came around and I was off!  So much easier to get my head around.  So many helpful videos coming out one after the other, it was inspirational.  My level of understanding and proficiency is now so much greater and it's all down to the X-series and the ever-helpful videos that Cakewalk released with it.  I've never even needed the Groove3 courses (which you have to pay for), the tutorials released by Cakewalk have always been sufficient to me.  I think they've done a fabulous job.
 
So although I sympathise with a power user who's not finding the workflow to their liking, I just feel that the X-series has opened up the field to so many more people who, like me, have always aspired to make music, but have not been able to due to the complexity that was their before X.

Well, the ole "no news is good news" applies to things like user forums for software. I'm a lot more vocal about problems than I am improvements.
 
Here's a good example: when the new X-series envelope tools came out I was all like "Whaaaaaaaat?" Eventually I retrained myself and generally had/have excellent results (of which I've been silent about). Recently an older project started showing envelope bugs where certain new features stop working randomly. And I was all like "Whaaaaaaat?" I completely missed the "Hey this is actually pretty cool!" phase with that particular tech.
 

Geoff you're right its T not H.  This is what is so great about this forum we know other members have our backs.