X1 did seem sluggish and clunky after coming off of 8.5. X2 was much, much better. X3e wins the cigar so far!

@Mystic38 - I would welcome any opportunity to help you figure out why you are crashing at all with X3 - can you please post some threads with each issue?
 
I'm willing to try if you are willing to give it a shot, 
 
Bob Bone
 

Rhytenow
Thank you to everyone for their responses!  Really good info!  Looks like I'll be upgrading to Sonar X3!  

Nice avatar!

Project 5 hey! Funny I was looking over some Cakewalk wallpapers the other day going back to Sonar 3 including Cakewalk and Project 5 motifs. Nostalgia.

Crash-Free since X3e!

I'm still only on X3c and aside from a couple glitches when I was being a total spazz it has been rock solid. I've done extensive recording audio and MIDI, comping/editing and a bit of mixing. Haven't dug into more obscure parts of the program yet but yeah... I don't even have to think about the program borking out anymore. X1d was kind of solid but crashed hard sometimes, X2 was a glitchfest but X3 has been a dream. I haven't changed my system in any way even though I was planning on completely wiping the system and starting from scratch. I've been seeing a lot of complaints about comping mode but they seem to be mostly confusion/workflow based and comping does take a bit of learning but if you switch to the other editing modes then it's just like editing in a more traditional setting (which is what I did until I spent the 20 minutes it took to learn Comp mode).
 
tl;dr
 
It works. Do it. Cheers.

X3E is just better all round than X1D for all sorts of reasons including stability.

X1 was a toddler. Often adorable, but had a hard time at first learning to walk - and you did have to change the diapers until he grew up to X1d.
X2 was a teenager. Generally a good kid, despite moments of angst. However, dropped out of school before graduating to X2b.
X3 went back to school, graduated with honors, and is now a mature yet fun-loving adult. You're glad he moved in next door and became your neighbor.

Beepster
I'm still only on X3c and aside from a couple glitches when I was being a total spazz it has been rock solid. I've done extensive recording audio and MIDI, comping/editing and a bit of mixing. Haven't dug into more obscure parts of the program yet but yeah... I don't even have to think about the program borking out anymore. X1d was kind of solid but crashed hard sometimes, X2 was a glitchfest but X3 has been a dream. I haven't changed my system in any way even though I was planning on completely wiping the system and starting from scratch. I've been seeing a lot of complaints about comping mode but they seem to be mostly confusion/workflow based and comping does take a bit of learning but if you switch to the other editing modes then it's just like editing in a more traditional setting (which is what I did until I spent the 20 minutes it took to learn Comp mode).
 
tl;dr
 
It works. Do it. Cheers.

Lots of fixes and enhancements between x3c and the current x3e. You should update too. You only need to apply X3e update as it's cumulative.

Hi, mudge. Yeah, I intend to. Just haven't really had my head into the whole music thing because of some extremely annoying crap going on around here. Funny thing is I've actually been using Pyro to help me document a bunch of stuff and then did a massive splicejob in X3. I should be able to get back to work on some creative work again soon though so I'm going to update a bunch of stuff on the DAW including Sonar.
 
Still though the type of work I've been doing would have been a nightmare in X2 on my system (they did not play nice together for whatever reason) and before all this I was doing a ton of tracking and comping without any problems. I'm gonna be delving into some video stuff soon so I definitely want those enhancements installed.
 
Cheers.