well, if that was the case we'd probably still be on version 5 or 6 ;-)
i agree that 'bug' free software would be ideal, but we don't live in a perfect world (unfortunately) - and what scs has done for 9 through to now has been very 'helpful'.
of course, if we waited for ALL the bugs (known and unknown) to be sorted before version 10, we might be waiting a very, very long time indeed......
I agree a perfect world is too much to hope for, but I think we have a right to expect that at least within major releases the bug count decreases as the alphabetic releases increase. I think that is happening with 9.0a, b, c, d, but I'm not entirely certain.
Every software company have their "Win ME" or "Vista" releases, which at the time was supposed to be the "new best thing ever" but end up being used, but never loved.
Most often they are followed by a dramatic improvement in quality, or by going out of business.
Let's hope that Vegas Pro 9 "ME/Vista" is followed by Vegas Pro 10 as Sony's equivalent of Windows 2000 and Win 7.
Basically what I'm saying is, established software has an evolutionary development cycle, where new features is squeezed into an existing framework. at some point that framework breaks down to the point where bug fixes trigger weird seemingly unrelated errors elsewhere.
That is when a company can try to patch it up, or redesign. I hope Sony make the tough decision of doing both, patch 9 till it can be used with as few headaches as possible, while they work on getting get a redesigned/rebuilt Vegas Pro 10 out.
Lets face it, Vegas have had to grow a lot lately, with HD and a plethora of formats.