Slow performance is my single biggest pain point with After Effects right now. How many times a day do I hit 0 for RAM preview -- and then wait? Then make a tweak and do it all again? How many times a day do I scrub a parameter -- and then wait? Then scrub it a little more and wait a little more?

In my mind, improving performance is all about minimizing or eliminating these bottlenecks in the creative process.

Robert mentioned Mamba FX -- that's a great example. I can do work on Mamba on my laptop in realtime that requires a render in Ae on my much more powerful Z800. If you are used to waiting on Ae, it's hard to describe how creatively freeing realtime or near-realtime performance is, and how much the computer waiting on you instead of you waiting on the computer changes the way you work.

I'm all for sharpening the ax before we try to chop more wood.