Re: How does this change anything?

It hasn't changed a lot. They just made Smoke more attractive to a greater audience. The new price point put Smoke more in the realm of Autodesk's 3D applications and away from their classic finishing systems. The "modernized" interface has been created to make the initial access easier for freshmen. However, all these measures don't bring Smoke in line with Adobe PremierPro, FCP, or any other NLE except Avid DS, let alone whole suites.

From what you are saying (writing) I have the feeling that you never had the opportunity to learn Smoke thoroughly and gave it a ride in real projects. Smoke is not for everyone, not for every type of projects, it never was and it won't be. The learning curve won't be less steep, only the entrance is easier.

Smoke is very good at handling VFX intensive projects with demanding clients that sit behind your neck and need tons of versions. It's not foremost made for fast editing with features such as multi-cam. We use Smoke in connection with Red and Alexa originated footage, high quality GS work, things like sky-replacement, complex 3-D text animations and classic roto-work. For TVCs that need more VFX work than Smoke and our knowledge can tackle we go to a post house with a very talented Flame artist.

For other projects that require less quality, less VFX, less anything, that are more budget conscious we use Adobe's Production Suite which we like a lot. BTW, there are tasks where PP and AE can feed Smoke very well.

Regarding the price-drop plague. It has me haunted since I purchased Shake. Retail prices dropped from 3.5k to 500 EUR. The next big thing was FinalTouch (over10k lost if I recall correctly). Next case was SpeedGrade, now part of Adobe's suite, loss: 15k. Now Smoke. The loss is about 10k. Fortunately I had enough time to make a meaningful ROI out of all these applications. I don't mind really. If your want to stay ahead you have to risk something. Lets move on.

Hans