The Adobe team sure make some great features. Just whacked some architecture pictures, and the speed of analysis to make sloppy wide angle pictures is impressive.
The spot heal tools are much better now. I am still would have preferred the same type of spot healing brush as in Photoshop. The brush is not precise enough and doesn't make for an easy or acceptable job in LR5 beta for beauty pix.
The Radial tool albeit seemingly reversed is quite good, adaptable. I cannot figure out why you have to invert the mask to make the select area applicable?
I don't use books so no comment.
Speed seems +/- like a new catalogue in LR4. I have an old Mac Pro anyway which is now relatively slow at everything.
Happy that there are no glaring sweeping changes, as it is such great application for what I do. The changes are small in the UI thus easy to adjust workflow to.
Might have been nice to be on par with C1 with the colour grading in skin tones, etc, but with the Adobe flare in UI design.
I am also happy that LR is still a love between the dev team and users. It shows, is felt and appreciated.
Oh forgot the Smart Preview is good enough reason alone to upgrade. For traveling photographers a perfect way to edit images without having the volume present.