I find FCP on OSX to be INFINITELY preferable to ANY Avid installations in terms of user-friendliness (and Avid has barely improved on their interfaces of 10 years ago). Can’t speak to how the various systems compare in render time.
Avid tech support is non-existent unless perhaps you’ve purchased their highest-end machinery.
Avid Express Pro on PC’s is amazingly unstable, even on premium systems.
At this point I only work on Avid at all because it is essential to know it in the free-lance world. My hope is that Avid’s complacency will ultimately come back and sink them, leaving the field more open to better-designed and supported programs.
Best,
Tom
DesertVideo@earthlink.net