I understand where you're coming from, I went through a similar experience with the latest Microsoft Office after using Office 97 since...well, 1997. Nothing was where I wanted it, and whose idea was that ribbon, anyway? But I had to get into it because everyone I work with uses it. And I'm glad I did. Sure, there were some changes I think were ill-advised, but on balance it's way better. Now I'm flying on it.
 
You've been into X3 for several weeks...I've been living with the X-series for almost four years. I am way more productive than I ever was with 8.5, and with the way the X-series is now structured that has allowed for functionality like the improved comping, I expect to become even more productive in the years ahead.
 
The time I spent fumbling around X1 (and be thankful you're making the jump by going directly to X3 and bypassing X1!) has, in retrospect, turned out to be an investment that has served me very well over time. The productivity gains have more than offset the scaling of the learning curve.
 
For me, time is money and at first I was not coming out ahead. Now I'm coming out way ahead, so it was worth it.

rbowser
There aren't any improvements in the PRV, for instance - it's just become more fiddly and slower to work with.  Same processes, just arbitrarily changed by people who seemed to have been more concerned with looks than functionality.  You do exactly the same things as before, only now with more mouse clicks, more keybindings, more nerdy button pushing.
 

 
Well, the horizontal/vertical timeline zoom (left/right-clicking on the timeline and draging up/down) in the PRV (and TV) introduced in X2 is a big improvement for me.
 

John
Outside of the color limitations in the X series I don't see much difference in the CV from 8.5. 
 
The number of sends shown were reduced but beyond that I'm not too sure what is so different. 

 
I have a copy of 8.5LE, and the console view's strip width seems "just right" to me (not too narrow/wide).

frankly... I find the console view to look like "Houston Control" especially if a couple of ProChannels are flown out and loaded up.  Meters all over the place.  It looks incredibly cool, but I need to move to being more functional in it, rather than just it being chock full of analog looking meters, flickering all over the place. 

Also on my 27" monitors... it just seems like I'm only looking at about 10 channels max....with all this other stuff.  And you load up a ProChannel and you end up having to minimize something in it.   I need 60 inch monitors with everything the same size as it is on my 27"

By the time I've gotten to mixing, the ProChannels and such have already been set up and making the right noises. So I narrow all the strips and pretty much just use the faders and panpots...old-school mixing. If I need to do tweaking, I'll usually head back into track view, or fly out a ProChannel as needed.
 
Come to think of it, for me using Sonar has three distinct processes:
 
Tracking. I just want to get stuff down as fast as possible before the inspiration dies. I do virtually no editing or mixing.
Editing. This involves replacing the bogus parts with real ones, fixing the ones that need fixing, and setting up processors and sends.
Mixing. Faders, panpots. and automation.
 
If you segregate your activities this way, screensets are incredibly helpful. If you need to revert to a previous process, just call up the screenset. I essentially use Sonar as three separate programs, with each "program" optimized for a specific task in terms of layout and workflow.

Only just understood Scook’s answer (post #3) to the problem of the PRV not being able to close without clicking the X(close) tab, and always coming up as a small window. I was trying to go in and out of it when it wasn’t docked. I didn’t know you had to manually add it to the docking list; I had thought that as the Console View was behaving properly switching between track view and console view, that the PRV should be also. I couldn't understand why it wasn't. I was actually wanting to stay away from the docking mode altogether as I thought that that was the mode where you have lots of views cluttering the screen. I didn’t know you had to be in that mode even to switch full page views.
 
I also now see that I can dock the Meter/Key view, like you can any other. So I am glad about that.
 
Didn’t get any response about the fact that the full control bar, with all modules checked, doesn’t fit on my screen in spite of the screen being on the highest resolution setting, and being a reasonable size.

All the modules won't fit on a single screen no matter what the resolution

> All the modules won't fit on a single screen no matter what the resolution
 
Maybe one day X4 could have something like this for pro channel components....
 
 

 
Imagine each wheel is part of a channel, each icon is a pro channel module, and you could spin each wheel with your fingers...
3 lemons in a row = a hit ;). Well you get the concept.
Cheers
 

I would really like a sideways scrolling Control Bar... at the very least. I have tons of ideas for the CB but I've already done enough yammering for today.

lawp
All the modules won't fit on a single screen no matter what the resolution

You can spread it across two monitors if you have two monitors.

Thanks Lawp And John for responses to Control Bar not fitting on screen.
 
What about the "Save" icon? Is that no longer available in X3, or is this just a case of changing settings? I remember the Save icon mysteriously disappearing in version 8 and a good person on this forum gave me a settings fix for it which brought it back up. I tried to find that thread but I guess it was too long ago and it's no longer listed.
 
I don't mind a few single key shortcuts, but I'm not a fan of awkward key combination shortcuts because it means hands off the mouse and eyes off the screen. Even Ctrl+S for Save I regard as somewhat cumbersome, but I am a poor typist.