I think you bring up an excellent point here. More than once I have used a video editting tool that was deemed "amateurish" and yet was able to turn out some really good looking video. Sometimes an inexpesive tool will have one or two features either not found anywhere else or else cost an awful lot. Sometimes you gotta dig for the pearl. I have not used Sony Vegas but I have heard good things about it. Just keep an open mind and be sure to make use of the "try before you buy" trials that are available.
i use edius program.i think it easy for use cut video and movies.you not render and many more effect in program.i'm recommend this program
premiere pro is pretty easy, you should try you'll master it in no time if you're already familiar with adobe products
visifly is supposed to be one of the best compressors, but its commercial. you can download a trial version to see if it will do the job, but you get the 'visifly' watermark on the output. http://www.visifly.com/
I Second that I'd been using other, cheaper, programs for ages. I thought I'd fork over the extra cash and wow. Sony Vegas is my favorite by far
A simple one would be like Windows Movie Maker, Ulead Video Studio. And then for a more complex one, it'd go: Sony Vegas, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premier, and Final Cut Pro.
Guys, you can find a lot of video editing tools on geovid.com for example VidCrop, it's my favourite it's a good video cropper that can work with different video formats, avi, asf, mp4, mpg, mpeg, mov, wmv and others...
Ulead Video Studio 11 isn't bad and much better than version 10. For something free just use Windows Movie Maker.