"Anonymus'" comments don't show credible problems with this software. As for slow... It's Cocoa... Cocoa apps are, usually, pretty quick (down right snappy) especially, with the hardware configuration people use in these fields... realtime adjustments of images and text are by no means slow. The estimation,"Overrated", was, as my guess leads (as there was no detailed example of how it was overrated), may be a referrence to the apps esteemed power and comparison to apps like InDesign or Illustrator Image Ready or Quark or Dreamweaver, etc.... nah..not overrated. Though often touted as a "mid level" suite of apps...the Stone Studio often stands toe to toe.. (sometimes surpassing..) the usefulness of these apps.. The "Studio" is the "Studio" and isn't meant to be these other apps.. it's meant to be the "Studio". Standing on its own merit, it shines. In comparison with other apps.. and suites... it shines. The combination of apps to equal Create© alone, shows its power. With the addition of iMaginator and the power of Linkback... these apps just became a whole lot more powerful, funcional, and the ease of use and workflow possibilities just sky rocketed.

Drag a portion of a layout via a dragwell to iChat or Adium, or Fire or Proteus or Subetha or iStorm (,etc) and your collaborative productivity just left the others in the dust. yeah. check it out. Cocoa is the way to go... (P.S. ;-) ) put (the following is a list of and/or's) Tiffany, Seashore, Gimp (or Gimpshop), Teal, Intaglio, iDraw, EasyDraw, Cheetah3D, Sphaera, PressPercent... Put these in your arsenal... then judge. see your inital costs come down.. and see your productivity increase. Give them a try... Most come with Trial liscenses. I didn't mention the makers of OW.. but... heh heh.. add them in the mix... wow. Check out the Studio, Now.

probably the most over-rated suite of apps on mac OSX ever. - slow, ugly and counter-intuitive.

Create 11 is more of an evolutionary step for the app, but it was already so simple to learn that it doesn't need reinventing. Its simple tool palette, thorough inspector panel, its use of a resources library, and multipage layering and thumbnails make it a joy to work with.

The other big deal for me in this release is PStill version 2.6 which now takes advantage of Apple's new PDF workflow options in OS X version 10.2.4. Stone Design has a distinct advantage because it can take new features Apple adds to the OS and applications for "free" and much faster than the big developers. The developer is also extrmely responsive to user input, and can also seemingly implement user suggestions at will.

My critique of the suite would be a few minor points:

I think it could use some more and varied clip art, especially if they were as slick and professional-looking as OS X icons and other elements.

I think the animation tool, originally set up in Create, could move into GIFfun as a one-stop shop for animation. I think people look for it there sometimes instead of in Create.

And I wish Apple would make the standard rulers more like Keynote's rulers with alignments guides, so Create could auto-magically inherit them!

Great tools, great price, great developer, great community.