I work with MIDI 99% of the time.
I loved Sonar 8.5 and earlier; they felt very intuitive to me. I have not enjoyed the X1 and X2 UI changes, and have been frustrated by the lack of customizability; I wish I could make X1/X2 work more like 8.5. My feeling is that X1 and X2 cater more to the audio side of things, and in the interest of "interface simplicity", a lot of the MIDI conveniences were eliminated.
Does X3 add more flexibility and robustness in terms of the UI, specifically when it comes to manipulating MIDI data?
For example:
1) Does X3 let us add +/- pitch and time controls to individual tracks lanes (like we could in 8.5), or do we still need to pop up the inspector to make those changes (like in X1/X2)?
2) Do the independent snap resolutions work cleanly in both the piano roll and the track view? Or are they still "fiddly"?
3) Does drawing MIDI automation data work smoothly, or does it still sometimes ignore the mouse movements?
4) Can you remap the left/right mouse clicks so that right clicking a note can open the note properties instead of deleting it (when using the Smart Tool)? Or do you still need to ctrl-right-click (or whatever that forced combo is in X1/X2)?
5) Are there any other refinements to MIDI editing in either the Piano Roll or the Track View?
Or is X3 mostly focused on improvements to audio, soft synths, and effects?