I have used Migration Assistant two or three times. Each time I was very frustrated at first. I have found the default in Migration Assistant to go to wireless transfer can cause problem. Last time I did this, Migration Assistant said it would take 35 hours! Once started, you are then stuck and have to do a hard stop (which I did while on the phone with Apple Support).
I have also tried trasnfer by ethernet - but that does not work well either. It tends to freeze midway through.
My most successful results were to connect an external hard drive and then do a Time Machine back up from the machine I want to transfer from. I then go to the machine I want to transfer to. I now turn off my Airport wireless on the machine that I want to receive the migration so it cannot start transferring that way. I then connect the receiving machine to the external hard drive with the back up from the other machine. When I open the Migration Assistant utility on the receiving machine, I elect to migrate "from a back up". The utlity then trasnfers all the info I selected to the receiving machine. I transfer everything, including applications and have no troubles when I do it this way. I have found this to be the fastest and most successful approach.
