Well, performance is better than alpha 2, but still nothing to write home about.
And they're right -- there's no sound out of my 'funky laptop sound chips'. But the promise that there would be was enough for me to finally buy the package.
I can get to the music store, and didn't get any warnings about not being able to burn CDs (not that I tested it, but I got the warnings last time). Here's to hoping a fully-compatible version is just around the corner.
ttm