My thoughts on Lion:
I honestly like the grayscale icons in Finder. At the moment, to me at least, the sidebar looks cluttered and distracting. But maybe that's just me.
Not sure how I feel about the hidden scrollbar - it looks a bit annoying, what with it popping up all the time, and is too big and strangely distracting. If less clutter/distraction was what Apple was going for, I would have preferred a grayscale scrollbar. It ends up being smaller and doesn't become distracting as it pops up and fades away. :\
All-corner resizing - meh. I'll probably just subconsciously go to the bottom right 95% of the time, but I guess I'm glad it's there? Always hated Windows' ('s or just '? lol) way of dealing with resizing - I have having to point my cursor in just the right spot for the resizing icon to appear. I like OS X's preemptive visual cue, and the lack of unnecessary cursor change. Some people are glad to have the option, and I understand that - what I really don't like it how's it's implemented on every OS that uses it. (Linux flavours (that I've tried) included.)
Reverse scrolling: NO! It works great on iOS because the idea of touch-based scrolling is that you're dragging the screen with your finger, but that isn't how it works on the desktop. You're moving the visual page across the entirety of the window by moving the "visual area" (image it like a box moving around the full page) up or down. You aren't dragging the page around. All it'll do is confuse the hell out of me, and whenever I use a different OS I'll have to consciously switch. The fact that it's a feature at all (and a default one at that :\) - optional or not - is user hostile. Don't like this one bit, especially considering the fact that Apple might get the idea to drop the option after a few more iterations of Mac OS. (Hope not.)
LaunchPad seems a bit redundant and pointless to me, seeing as we already have app folders in our dock. And beyond that - we have a DOCK. I guess it's something that some people might like, but it just seems like a pointless extra gesture option that really didn't need to be inspired by iOS.
Mission Control is I guess okay? It just seems like an enhanced exposé.
I like the new Mail - the three-section browser always annoyed me, and I like the new focus being on the message. I have scrolling through my tiny message window, and I have opening a new window even more. This is one thing I'm glad they took from iOS, because it actually adds to the user experience and improves on something.
Autosave sounds like it will be a nice feature if it's done correctly. One thing I don't want is to be afraid of closing my app for fear of losing my document. I like the feeling of saving and then being sure my document is properly saved. But looking at how it's done in iLife, I guess I don't have much to worry about. I'm sure I'll be uneasy for the first few weeks, though, haha.
Versions are very cool. It's very much an extension of time machine, but it actually shows you what your document looks like - formatting, pictures, pages and all - without having to search through your files and use Quick Look.
Resumé is a nice feature. Not much to say except for the fact that I'll definitely be restarting and my mac a lot more than I usually do. Definitely needed autosave to take off - I'm glad they both came at once.
AirDrop will be a very good feature if it's done right, and will make using two macs on one project exponentially easier the more files are involved. Of course, I'm sure lots of people won't use it at all, but hey. It really strikes me as a "consumer" feature that will be really useful in the professional market, but we'll see.
I wasn't able to see the new Quick Look before the video went down, but any improvement is welcome. I just hope it still works properly when previewing a file to be imported into an app, but I assume it will.
Lion server - depending on how full-featured it is, it's either extremely appreciated or extremely unhelpful. XP
Overall, I like Lion except when Apple tried to import features from iOS that were unnecessary or even damaging in a desktop OS. I hope scrolling in general is better in the public version, but I honestly don't see it happening except for maybe the upside-down gestures.
