That's because it was promoted that way -- and I suspect it is a nifty treat for HD video frames and smaller static images. And we all buy into the marketing hype until some of us figured out it actually sucked for big images.
The value propositon of this upgrade for Mac user looks worse every day that passes by...
It is almost amusing when I compare the situation I was in 6 months ago to mine today:
- 6 months ago: rock solid Tiger 10.4.11, CS3
- now: dodgy Leopard 10.5.6, CS4
Since I bought PS as part of an Design suite ultimate upgrade, I am about 1.000 US$ poorer with little added value (at least on the Photoshop front). Granted the need to upgrade to 10.5.6 was a nice present from CaptureOne.
The only feature I end up using in CS4 compared to CS3 is the new adjustement layers interface and enhanced curve function which are both nice, although the curve window is still way too small.
As a side comment though, I have found out that I am getting much better performance with my software Raid 0 2 Raptor set up when using the SoftRaid compared to Apple's disk utility... which was mostly not the case with Tiger.
You've got to love software providers.
Cheers,
Bernard