What’s the point of such a thread ? 
Isn’t this one enough : http://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=181&t=51385 ? 
So, Freddie, as the only way to see it is that you want to start a debate in a more or less provocative way, I’m going to please you by answering with my point of view. But, as I don’t want to loose too much of my time on it, I’m going to post here large excerpts of other posts of mine, made here and there.
I was considering an eventual update from 7.0.6 (while carefully keeping 5.1 and 6.5 installed…), this, despite all the UI regressions (yes, I’m probably one track minded ans still hate the new white masked timeline cursor and the C7 color schemes, among others…), as the first comments about 7.5 was ‘fantastic’, ‘amazing’, ‘wonderful’, etc, etc…
The main things that were interesting me are the track versions, the track visibility and the new algo reverb. I don’t really care about the others, honestly…
But since 7.5 release, I have seen here :
- Again, a drastic increase of project loading times (and I thought that it couldn’t get worse…),
- Projects .cpr file size of some users here growing from 600 kb (with 7.0.6) to… 4.5 Mb ! ,
- Content download and installation issues,
- Anormal spikes here and there with still as much resources used as before if not worse for some,
- And another feature removal without warning : no more grid when using freewarp.
And beside this (among several others…) :
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Still the dreaded and unavoidable white masked timeline cursor which, as I’m more than 50 years old, appears as two vertical lines without glasses, no matter the width set for it. A workflow killer by itself…
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No UI regressions fixes : still no replacements for the preferences settings that were in both ‘Appearance/General’ and ‘Appearance/Work area’ pages (the latter has just disappeared from 6.5 to 7), especially the ones involving the grid, the buttons and work area brightness. This with others UI quirks such as the behavior of the R/W buttons of the FX/Group tracks when narrowing them.
And, last but not least, the brand new preferences color scheme, which is anything but practical : you can’t even copy a color from an item to another and there is not even a way (AFAIK) to do a savable basic palette of colors in it, this to avoid the more or less erratical clicking, trying to pick up the right color tone needed. But there’s so much to say about all the UI regressions…
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No fixes for Generic Remote definitions in order to clearly support both :
- soft takeover. It works, but only if you accept to edit manually the generic remote definition xml file. In other words, this feature is unavailable, using the UI of the ‘Device setup’ window and not documented…
- NRPN support : this one is completely broken and I had to find a clumsy workaround using different MIDI channel number for each control to be able to use my MPD32 endless knobs. I sent a support ticket to Steiny about this more than one month ago, and still waiting for any feedback…
This without talking about the still channel dependent layout, which means that you better think of it twice, before trying to add or remove a channel/track if plug-ins are involved in the currently active GR definition…
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No fixes concerning the key commands behavior issues with the MixConsole focus,
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No improvement of the RCE (absolutely useless with generic remote handling ; this thingy was naively one of the main reasons to purchase C7, one year back…),
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No improvement of the ASIO guard,
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Still the same click fest in the MixConsole,
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Trackpresets are still unusable with multiouts VSTis.
So, basically, more or less useful features added again, leaving more and more things half-baked, this with unwanted regressions and changes. Seems like Steiny is engaged in a headlong rush and I’m increasingly fearing what the future will bring. It explains why I will NOT upgrade to 7.5, as I don’t want to support Steiny in the wrong track they are engaged in.
Been trapped one time with C7 and will not make the same mistake again : I’ll keep on using 5.1 and 6.5 for as long as possible…
Hope you’re happy with this, Freddie. Good christmas to you ! 