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Final Cut Pro Upgrade in the Works
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If you are going to export out of FCP, use QT ref. Almost any other program (NLEs: Avid, Premiere... and Compositing: BorisFX, Shake, AfterEffects) can handle QT ref and you don't loose any time encoding/decoding and the quality remains the same (since it's a ref file.)
As for comparisons of FCP to other NLEs, the biggest bonus for FCP is it can handle many formats and the software is relatively cheap. There are definitely better compositing programs out there. Also, comparing FCP to Premiere is now an outdated comparison. The current PC-only Premiere Pro is a much better product than Premiere ever was. Premiere was crap. If I was to rank what was on the current market today in NLEs ignoring the simplified/consumer market (like iMovie, etc.) from lowest to highest end, it would be something along the following: Vegas<->FCE, PremierePro, Avid Xpress, Avid XpressPro<->FCP<->Avid XpressPro+Mojo, Avid MC Adrenaline(online editing), Avid Nitris (online editing). The Meriden based Avid stuff falls in the high-end, but it's quickly being outclassed by native processing. (Also, remember the price also escalates as you go higher to the over $30K region when you deal with MC Adrenaline and up.) I can't really class the Canopus editing solutions, since they've never interested me and the Sony high-end editing solutions don't even deserve a look if you've got the high-end Avid workstations around.
The "<->" area means they're pretty close to even comparisons, though the order is intentional to show pecking order (lowest to highest). As you can see, FCP (at $1K) falls between Avid XpressPro ($1.7K) and Avid XpressPro+Mojo($3.4K) which shows its clear advantage on a price-level.
As for comparisons of FCP to other NLEs, the biggest bonus for FCP is it can handle many formats and the software is relatively cheap. There are definitely better compositing programs out there. Also, comparing FCP to Premiere is now an outdated comparison. The current PC-only Premiere Pro is a much better product than Premiere ever was. Premiere was crap. If I was to rank what was on the current market today in NLEs ignoring the simplified/consumer market (like iMovie, etc.) from lowest to highest end, it would be something along the following: Vegas<->FCE, PremierePro, Avid Xpress, Avid XpressPro<->FCP<->Avid XpressPro+Mojo, Avid MC Adrenaline(online editing), Avid Nitris (online editing). The Meriden based Avid stuff falls in the high-end, but it's quickly being outclassed by native processing. (Also, remember the price also escalates as you go higher to the over $30K region when you deal with MC Adrenaline and up.) I can't really class the Canopus editing solutions, since they've never interested me and the Sony high-end editing solutions don't even deserve a look if you've got the high-end Avid workstations around.
The "<->" area means they're pretty close to even comparisons, though the order is intentional to show pecking order (lowest to highest). As you can see, FCP (at $1K) falls between Avid XpressPro ($1.7K) and Avid XpressPro+Mojo($3.4K) which shows its clear advantage on a price-level.