I am currently taking the Final Cut Pro Certification Training. (Two weeks of cramming)
FCP has a lot going for it. It is an excellent tool with some great internal processes. What I find though is how much of Vegas I have taken for granted.
In Vegas we see the audio waveform with the picture. That makes it easier to accurately trim.
In Vegas we overlap clips to create transitions. We can easily slide the events around to change the overlap and more accurately control our edits.
We have have great access to commmands like swap and insert with events.
We can right click and access many useful properties and commands on events and media. FCP has right click menus that are helpful, but they have much fewer timesavers than Vegas.
We have great audio control right on the timeline.
We have easy access to properties of transitions and effects.
Vegas is hands down more stable.
Last night in class, in a class of 18, two machines had to be rebooted because of lock-ups. I have 14 stations of Vegas in my classroom and I have NEVER had a lock up on a student. The teacher at the FCP class has Apples in constant rotation for service. I have had two machines have any hardware failure in four years. (BTW, I have locked up Vegas, but that has always been working with exotic media trying to find methods of working with the strange media.)
I love FCP's handling of HDV and overall it is a professional tool. I just have to admit that the user interface of Vegas is a smarter paradigm and much faster to work with.
KK