Go to the Wikipedia page for iMovie and look at the section covering the "upgrade" from iMovie HD 6 to iMovie '08. I used iMovie HD 6 and it was a great program, particularly the timeline which gave you an immense amount of control over the sound tracks, effects, etc. iMovie '08 got rid of all of those features and instead replaced them with the current interface which is far less powerful but theoretically it supposed to be easier to use for new users. Sound familiar? Yes, it has improved over the past few iterations, but I would argue it the UI was much better in iMovie HD 6. And like the latest Pages "upgrade," Apple left iMovie HD 6 on users hard drives since they knew the new iMovie had less features than the the old version.
I pretty much gave up on iMovie after it changed to '08. However, recently I helped my teenage daughter create a movie for a class she was taking using the latest iMovie, and I can unequivocally state that the UI is still not as good or as easy to use as iMovie HD 6 was. There were quite a few things we tried to do that I knew could have been done easily in iMovie HD6, but was next to impossible in the latest iMovie. And while I don't consider myself an expert editor by any means, I have helped produce videos and commercials for an ad agency and occasionally work with video editors today, so I am quite familiar with what can and should be able to be done in a NLE.
Also, the fact that Apple leaves the older, better version on your hard drive is little comfort to those who have invested hundreds of hours creating content in the program. This is because you know that program will only work for so long before a hardware or OS upgrade will leave your old program useless. It also means you are left to use a legacy app that will never get any better than it is right now. So whatever bug you wanted fixed, or feature added is never going to happen.
OK well you definitely are more expert on the video stuff than me so I will take your word on iMovie - I just haven't noticed anything for what I do. iPhoto is better - much faster and I checked and found all the features that I use.
I still stand by my argument on iWork - I think this effort was a refactor of the whole code base to Cocoa and will be the foundation of new features to be added later.
Update - Looking at the wikipedia page - it seems some of the features that were lost after iMovie 6 were introduced in later versions of iMovie.
"Criticism of iMovie '08
iMovie 08 was criticized due to its drastic abandonment of some iMovie HD 6 features. New York Times reviewer David Pogue said "iMovie ‘08 is an utter bafflement... incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable...All visual effects are gone — even basic options like slow motion, reverse motion, fast motion, and black-and-white. And you can’t have more than one project open at a time."[4]
Features removed included the classic timeline, the ability to create DVD chapter markers, support for plugins, and in-timeline audio adjustment and control. iMovie '08 imports to a much more limited set of video codecs and metadata formats than previous versions of iMovie or today's QuickTime Player. For example, QuickTime Player can be extended to support the FLIP Video 3ivx MPEG-4 codec, but iMovie '08 cannot. iMovie '08 also removed the ability to import DV footage. As a result, all resulting videos have lossy compression applied and there is no facility for managing full format video. The peculiar lack of QuickTime support means QuickTime Pro can edit a larger range of video than iMovie '08.
Apple released iMovie HD 6 as a free download to those who had purchased iMovie '08.[5] However, in response to the release of the subsequent newer version of iMovie '09, Apple removed the download in late January 2009[6] while also reducing the $299 price tag for Final Cut Express to $199.
Several of the features removed from iMovie '08 that were previously included with iMovie HD 6 have been restored into iMovie '09 and, more recently, iMovie '11.
iMovie '09
iMovie '09 (Version 8.0) was released January 2009 as part of the iLife '09 package.
It introduced some new features and restored some features from previous versions of iMovie, including basic video effects (such as fast/slow motion and aged film) and image stabilization as well as travel map functions for marking locations where a video was shot. iMovie '09 also introduced simple implementations of more advanced features such as picture-in-picture and Chroma keying. It also improved editing with a precision cut editor and a clip trimmer, improved support for hard drive-based cameras such as the Flip Mino, added some new titles and transitions, and added full iDVD support (which was unavailable in iMovie '08). I
n addition, it introduced a Full-Screen Library Browser with which the user can find and examine all of his or her video in one place.
iMovie '11
iMovie '11 (Version 9.0) was released on October 20, 2010 as part of the iLife '11 package.
It has the ability to make trailers for home movies, more control over audio, instant replay and flash and hold effects, facial recognition, news themes, and the ability to watch the video on a Mac, iPad, iPhone/iPod touch, or Apple TV, as well as sharing on Facebook and YouTube. It now supports the AVCHD Lite format.
Apple worked with Abbey Road Studios in London, England to bring original music/film scores to iMovie '11. The music is most notably used in the "trailers" feature provided by the software.
On January 6, 2011, Apple made iMovie '11 (along with Aperture, the iWork suite, and the rest of the iLife suite) available on the then-new Mac App Store.[7]"