> 2) competing products will not sit still and watch the AE Team utilize permanent man/brain
> resources on improving application speed while neglecting creative enhancements
>
I would say that many of the competitors are already faster than AE, but lack many of the creative tools that AE has, so i think it is right to really focus on speed now.
Im thinking about the small AE like Hitfilm, SGO Mamba FX that both are realtime in many aspects, and both Nuke and Fusion is also moving more in the GPU direction making much of the work near realtime.
> 5) can work on speed improvements be contracted out?
>
I dont hope Adobe considers to have outsiders work on the source code, it could be a potentiel disaster stability wise. Keep the code internal to the small group that knows it inside out... or well, what do i know about programming, it just doest sound like a good idea in my head.
AE has always been incredible stable for me... apart from the odd version: CS4.