Demo both products.
Make the decision for yourself based on what fits the bill and your budget. Don’t ever listen to anybody who says FCP sucks cuz it crashed five times last week or Avid is buggy. The fact of the matter is that if configured properly both systems work really well and are very good solutions. I would suggest you find a good reseller in your area that sells both systems and demo them. A good reseller is a very valuable resource. Espically if you run into any tech problems.
One thing to note, Avid has a family of products, many different systems running on many different computers and configs. I often hear people complain about how “their Avid” can’t do this and FCP can when you talk to them you find out they are unhappy about a Media Composer version 7 running on a Mac9600.
Demo the latest version of each application. Get the best computer you can afford, FCP & Avid’s performance is tied to the cpu’s they are running on.
My 2 cents