Well, the day is finally upon us, and I've anxiously waited this morning for a while. I hopped out of bed like Christmas morning, ran to my computer, and started updating. Well, needless to say, mixed reactions ensued. My initial impressions..

Marketplace/Zune Software:
PROS:
> Improved interface. Looks pretty and not like a barely-skinned WMP.
> Improved album art addition. Right click an album and it'll automatically update all songs and the songs synced on the Zune.
> Wireless sync is a beautiful thing!

CONS:
> Still feels like a skinned WMP, but better disguised.
> Confusing at times, VERY DIFFICULT to edit metas.. WHY?? Shouldn't this be streamlined?? I try to simply change an album artist and I can't even click it. I click "edit" and it only brings me to the album title. Even if there's a keystroke to bring me to Artist, it's very poorly conceived and just as disappointing as Zune Software 1.
> No support for editing songs that are already on the Zune. What I liked about iPod and iTunes was the ability to edit metas on the iPod on the fly.
> STILL NO CODEC SUPPORT! This is easily my biggest qualm. Almost everywhere I looked told me that I'd get h.264 and MPEG4 support, as well as 640x480 output.. and nothing. Now it's my understanding that it'll never come. VERY disappointing, MS.
> The inability to adjust wireless sync settings without connecting the Zune to the computer. Maybe I'm expecting too much (it probably needs to send information back and forth between the Zune to configure to the network), but it seems crappy to have to plug in the Zune to configure it to a wireless network, every time you want to ad it to a new wireless network. Seems like it should be able to be 'recognized' by the computer via a network, much like a wifi hotspot. Just my opinion, maybe.

On the Zune itself
PROS:
> Ooooh, that new big-font menu is sexy. I still like using my own BGs, but the standard is really low-key and good-looking.
> FINALLY, some good resolution! I finally can tell what this screen is capable of. It displays album art clearly (which was obviously affected by previous firmwares' dynamic zooming algorithms..), and my 320x240 BGs to a perfect pixel. Well played, MS. It was a small improvement but made a difference to me.
> Navigation is smooth, everything looks good visually.

CONS:
> When I'm looking through my 320x240 backgrounds to select one, why, oh why, are they showing up on my screen horizontally at 160x240???? I can't possibly understand why they're not shown vertically like they're displayed when I select them as wallpaper.
> Slightly laggy when selecting from the new, more graphical menu, IMO.
> Really, really scant menu options. It seems like the settings options should be richer, but there's barely anything there. Maybe I'm too used to MS running my computer display :-P
> Not many qualms about the player itself, because the problems I have with the player (video support, etc) stem from the computer software's limitations.

That's my list thus far of my pros and cons with the new update. How do you feel about it? I'd love to know!

It really messed up my albums... I had tons of doubles, and artists were all mismatched... By this I mean a song by Evanessence says the artist is All american Rejects and the album is Move along! WTF! So I deleted it all to start again... So I start draggin some of my albums in... I drag in All American Rejects album and it Says its the Imogen Heap album! Everytime! Annoying! And to top it off you cant edit the track info anymore... Then I want to drag and drop tracks back to their correct albums, but you can not do that either! I have to say I hate the software 100%!

One the plus side by Zune itself looks great...

Con: Software

Pro: Hardware

What can I do to fix this?

M$ should warn us that an update lacks features of previous firmware so we don't waste our time installing and then trying to figure out how to downgrade. I'm really pissed and disappointed. This is not making me a Zune fan! Not only does the new version not have 1-5 ratings, no flags, missing options and no autoplaylists, but in all this process of upgrading and downgrading, it stripped the guts out of my autoplaylists so they don't even work on the old version any more. I have to recreate them all. Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!