I keep harping cuz I just dropped $3000 for suck-ass Quartz speed, that's why!
And as for Apple's responsibility vs. the developers' responsibility, something tells me something is very wrong when not a single developer (Adobe, MYOB, Macromedia, Microsoft, Corel, Omnigroup, etc.) can make an X app that seems to run crisply. (Reminder:I'm ONLY talking about the graphics layer, not launch speed, rendering, calculations, etc.).
Firewire is great, you're right, I love it in X. Almost instant mounting is awesome! And very fast transfer speeds. Nice. Here's other stuff I love about X:
"smarter" app launching via extensions
built in server
it looks awesome
much better navigation options (now give my damn spring loaded folders back plz!)
dock is very efficient
Apple's software lineup is very well integrated
process killer, though I should'nt ever have to use it
it's just "cleaner"
easier to get where I need to, things are more logically placed
I can finally have multiple network protocols at once
auto-launching apps like dvd player, itunes, photo capture, etc.--smooth
But here's another thing slower in X that is all Apple's fault, network access. It takes me about half a minute to get fully mounted on our Win2K server including Command+K to bring up connection window, then login, then mount. OS 9 does this all in like 3 seconds. Lame. I thought X was supposed to be a network OS! Fortunately, the more important part, network transfer speeds are great. I can get slightly faster speeds (10%+-) from OS X than from our PC laptop connecting to the Win2K server.
I know my words sound harsher here in print, as all tongue-in-cheek and subtle sarcasm can be misconstrued for simple rudeness, but my point still remains. Until someone shows me an app that runs as well or better in X in the graphics layer, I will continue to harp on this. Non X users deserve to know the weakness of this otherwise great OS. Also, I want to keep the pressure on Apple in case any of them are watching.