update to my earlier comments (only fair):
the incredibly slow response of the computer has improved markedly - does indexing 100gb take a day and a half? if it does, apple should get smart and warn you right up front with the glossy pictures in the app store that this is going to happen.
i didn't have many ppc apps left, but again, a warning that this would happen should be right up there. don't tell me about forums and the like, i'm not a fan of computers with all day to spend reading about them, i just use the things. like a kettle, you know?
my machine is a half year old. it has 2gb ram in it. if apple are doing a system release that requires double as much, what the heck are they doing selling computers with insufficient ram? however, i have to say that the spinning beachball is making far fewer appearances now.
if you don't like the new scrolling direction, or the invisible scrollbars, then check out the system preferences, where you can set some features back to how it was before.
there are still some bugs, which apple should get onto real quick if they want to stamp down the (not entirely unjustified) comparison with vista. but they seem to be less than catastrophic in scope.
i'd like to thank those who have offerred constructive help in this thread. to those that endlessly repeat the mantra that this isn't a problem with lion i would say this: if a computer works fine before an installation, and doesn"t work afterwards, for whatever reason, then there quite obviously is a problem. our goal here is to narrow down what that problem could be. if your hobby is computer forums, then fine, you'll know all the answers in advance. but people have a right to expect a product which they have paid for to work. this is not linux.
