"They're not finished baking yet." Cakewalk's ovens are too slow for their cooks.

I agree about the Automation Lanes. While certainly far from awesome, imo, I honestly like them. Take Lanes need some more thought, though. I can't argue with the power of Take Lanes, but simply the quirks and visual aspects of it are not what I'd judge "ready for prime time". I just don't get how these quirks and things weren't looked at with more scrutiny. It seems more like they are an after-thought, than something X2 originally had in store. Like the FX chain in Pro-Channel. You can add FX there or in the track. Why couldn't those be somehow more cohesive?

Whew! It's not just me being Mr. Negative ... you guys hate Take Lanes too. They really suck. No other way to put it.

I swear someone at Pro Tools has planted a saboteur at Cakewalk.

Layers are more efficient within the context of screen real estate.  And for comping.  in most situations that I encounter...

...and, of course, all IMHO.  No other DAW had anything like it.  I know some prefer lanes, but I'm glad to see more people coming out on the side of layers because I believe the best way forward is to support both lanes and layers, just like there are two ways of handling envelopes.

Please, bring back layers.  Ad a few fixes for lanes too...

I don't agree at all with supporting both layers and lanes, IMO the best way forward is too pick one and do it well, not half baked having to wait for the next version or 2, if ever, of getting a well developed important feature implemented. 
Dan

I understand the argument of making just one thing better and the concern of spreading resources across two approaches.  But by that reasoning we may want conclude that it's better to remove "in place" envelope editing and concentrate effort on editing envelopes in lanes....or get rid of the console and concentrate on the track view.

I know the last example is a wee bit overboard, but the one before it isn't and there are many here that would not want to see lanes trump the "legacy" approach for editing envelopes.  I think both styles have their merits and I'd prefer to keep both available.  Layers were almost perfect for me, and lanes is very far from perfect and I can't see them ever catching up on the very things that I mentioned in my previous post: screen real estate usage and some of the comping features.  I hope I'm proven wrong, but I'd still like to see both provided.

I especially hate the way zoom works with take lanes.  It's almost like the idea for this feature came from someone who never used the product.

 
Yes! Who wants to zoom the empty track space next to the track header and have limited Zoom in the Lanes.
 
 X2 is designed for touchscreen implementation I'm afraid. That must be why we've got the "Smart Tools" that often take two hands to make an edit. 

Bump so the "bakers" don't miss this. Plus, my frustration continues. Funny, I used to think layers needed some work and was really looking forward to lanes as I thought it would basically be a more developed implementation of layers w/o the quirks. It has turned out to be NOTHING like that at all unfortunately. Now I find myself wishing to have layers back even w/ it's small quirks.

Mike McQ loves 'em.  It's the main reason he upgraded to X2

I know that if it happened to me I would be frustrated as well. Again I encourage you to contact Cake with a problem report here http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/ProblemReporter/ The more people that do the higher the problem will get in the development queue.