When Aperture 2 was released, I literally reloaded all my files (about 200,000 files) from scratch, having learned how to best-for-me manage the Aperture library. What I did was put shoots into folders/subfolders and load each parent folder as a project, trying to limit each to <10k files. I also have 3 libraries: Personal, Stock, and Models.
Things usually work quite fine, but having an older iMac Core2 with only 3GB of memory, I try to quit all other apps if I'm asking Aperture to do much of anything, but even then it can be "come back tomorrow" for an export of small JPEG proofs, as the hard drive sounds like it's indexing the Library of Congress.
That said, AP3 needs three things to keep me a happy AP user, rather than using AP to organize my files and LR/PS/DXO for RAW processing and editing:
1) Speed. And more speed. I assume a new iMac w/ at least 8 GB will help, but the app needs not to be a dog performing tasks, and to be able to do so in the background when other apps are being used, w/o hogging out the hard drive.
2) Chromatic correction. The biggest shortcoming of what I can produce with Aperture. No lens is perfect and if I need to fix laterial chromatic "blur" (which I do if I'm making a fine art print) I use ACR or DXO to process my RAW files. (DXO also has killer distortion modifiers.)
3) Allowing plug-ins to be non-destructive. I love Nik filters, but I want to be able to place control points on a RAW file w.o having to save another TIFF/JPEG, for example.
I could make a longer list, but those are the "big three" for me. I would also like to hear from the Aperture team more often about their status and health. I don't like rumors of Aperture "going away" and if people know more, the user community would be much more vibrant.
