What I do like is the "ModelSource" feature to download the latest component schematic, footprint & 3D model from the RS Component's website. There is plenty of room for improvement of course & some of the features that I like in Altium I will send on to Designspark for their consideration for their next release. I'm designing up a new project with it now which is quite amazing as I do own Altium Designer 6.9 I just can't bring myself to pay the $3.6K Altium want for me to bring my version up to the latest release. Yes, a big improvement over its predecessors.
Just look at the winning approach MS has taken with Visual Studio. C'mon Altium, you should be getting all the young engineers hooked on your stuff so they have no choice when they turn professional. Overall I like it and will stick with it until Altium bring out a free/hobbiest version. I've made a number of parts so far and they worked out very well.
It's very easy to make and abstract footprints for PCB, schematic and 3D. If the manual routing tools are made nicer, it would improve efficiency dramatically. One other thing is that the PCB mode is heavily reliant on the context menu (right click) to do things like "End on Via" and "Change Layer". The auto-router SUCKS big time, so I do all manual routing. There are a number of missing features mentioned in this thread that I too would love to see incorporated, but they should come as the product evolves I imagine. Sent the first complete one off to itead studio and they said it looked fine for manufacture. I have done three layouts with it so far and all worked out well. Also it is considerably nicer to use than eagle IMHO, although i cant understand why there isn't a ruler or guide lines in the editors, is a massive ball ache trying to be precise with it, same with the non existent (bloody well hidden if it exists) coord editor so i can use num pad instead of mouse to position. I do find the library editor to be pretty buggy and prone to crashing out the whole program though so you find your self instinctively saving after every single edit (not that bad a thing I guess). libraries are the same, file formats are basically the same, and i dont like either of those products enough to want to convince my management to buy me a license whilst design spark is obviously free. The main advantage i find with it is that i have inherited several projects at work which were designed in EASY-PC/Pulsonix which is the same core product i.e. Certainly V3.0 has quite a few improvements in it, and auto panning is an option in settings, is just disabled by default. I don't find it that bad, and certainly for the price you cant really grumble.
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