To the original poster - X2a has been a wonderful release for lots of folks. If your experience has been different and you have not posted your issues to either tech support or to the forum (73 posts for you thus far), then you are suffering completely due to your own lack of follow through on your issues.
If, on the other hand, you are basing your rather grandiose conclusion and comparison to Vista on other poster's comments, then you are equally off-base. There are quite a few threads that started out thinking that Sonar was a giant mess, and once enough detail and cooperative diagnostics were performed, issues with things OUTSIDE of Sonar were found to have been the culprits, AND most of those folks have either had the issues resolved, OR they at least knew where the problems were coming from, and had some decisions to make on one of usually multiple options available that WOULD take care of the issues.
Even for the bugs that DO exist in Sonar, and yes they do, most are not show stoppers, and most have workarounds.
I would also point out that X2a fixed OVER 250 bugs, on top of some feature enhancements and such.
There are threads that keep popping up from a relatively small number of folks who have decided that Sonar is beyond repair, and/or that Cakewalk has abandoned their users, and/or every other DAW does a much better job at everything, and/or etc.
EVERY forum I have ever seen has some population of sour grapes. I am NOT talking about those who have legitimate issues that are in fact bugs - a bug is a bug, and if it is interfering sufficiently with one's workflow, then it is a real problem. I am talking about a set of folks who many times just go through life thinking everyone has peed on their corn flakes.
IF you are having issues, why not post them? There are plenty of folks here in the forum who have had great success in getting past issues, simply by asking for assistance of the forum folks, who do a very good job of helping folks that actually seek assistance, although they (myself included) tend to ignore posts that are just whining without substance.
The ball is squarely in your court - you can:
1. Post detail sufficient for folks to help you solve issues you are having with X2a
2. Contact tech support, if you would rather. (I would suggest calling, rather than email).
3. Continue to post threads like this one, and alienate the forum folks who would have otherwise have helped you.
4. Not post threads with detail so that forum folks can help, AND not call tech support, AND therefore get nothing helpful whatsoever out of life with Sonar.
I WILL, quite honestly and sincerely, be available to assist you, to the best of my ability, IF you post each issue you are having in a separate thread, with as much relevant detail as you can provide. Please do not think my comments above mean that I will not do my best to help you. I can comfortably also suggest that others here in the forum will also provide assistance. We have a pretty good collective track record of doing just that - even for folks who start out with angry initial posts.
Bob Bone