lawajava
Since I've been working in X2 the thought of working in X1 or Sonar 8.5 again seems painful. X2 has a bunch of overall refinements that have really made it easier and more efficient to work on the music.

If I had to single out only one thing as helping the most it might be auto track zoom, but that's only one of many things.

Totally agree! The point about going back is painful to contemplate. 

I Love the auto zoom and timeline zoom(s) but the PC effect chains make it hard when I drift back to Studio One or Reaper. 

Yeah, ProChannel FX Chains are super sweet.

I have to agree with the PC fx chains.  Some UI enhancements which coincide with new functions are cool, like in the Matrix View and Take Lanes.  However, in the same token, most features (include the latter two) leave more to be desired.  (Steve, you will have to share your techniques with R-mix.)
 
I also share the view John has shared.  One reason I was upset about the paradigm shift with X1 from 8.5.  8.5 was mature, stable and working well.  X1 was a complete restart and now we are going through an entirely new life cycle with a rich feature set that has a long way to go to maturity.  Well, that's my unsolicited 2cents.  My apologies.
 
Kind regards,
 
tecknot

Recording magazine has a write up on X2 and it is pretty complimentary on the new features.
 
There have been a hundred debates on this forum about which DAW is best.  I think the answer is that Sonar, Pro Tools, Cubase, and a few others are all world-class, so just pick one.  Recording mentioned that Sonar is good about bundling a lot of instruments and plug-ins for free and I agree.  That was one of the things that made me go to X1 instead of switching to another product.

I particularly like smart grid combined with autozoom.  It just makes so much sense when tweeking notes. I'm hardly using the full PRV anymore.