[begin rant]

Why is it "QuickTime Player X" instead of just "QuickTime X", especially given that it's not just a player, it also records audio, video and screencasts?

Why does Quicktime Player X not behave like a normal application? I open a video file, play it, and close the window. QT's icon remains in the dock. Click on the Desktop, or switch to any other application. Huh - QuickTime has apparently quit.

Or has it? I throw the video file into the trash and go to empty it - nope, can't do that, because it is "still in use". But QT isn't running... or is it? Open Activity Monitor and... voilà, QT Player X is still an active process. Quitting it from Activity Monitor allows you to empty the trash now. Duh.

Preferences! Where the heck are QT's preferences? There's no System Preferences pane for QT... and QT the app doesn't have a preferences menu item. When QTX was first introduced (in 2009), replacing QT7, we all said, "No worries, it's a new app, Apple will enhance it with preferences in a future update". But QTX didn't evolve under Lion. We don't know what's happening under Mountain Lion.

Yeah, I still have QT7 Pro in my utilities folder... yeah, I should just set it as the default for all media (or even VLC, but I gotta say, VLC's UI doesn't work for me). But darnit, Apple should get their own software house in order....

[/end of rant]

I don't know, but I sure have to agree with most of your rant comments, and "QuickTime X" still can't do many of the options available with the old "QT 7 Pro", which at least has a Preference option.

There seems to be a "QuickTime X" "preference" third party option enabler which I haven't tried available at:
Quicktime X Preferences for Mac - CNET Download.com (http://download.cnet.com/Quicktime-X-Preferences/3000-20429_4-10967183.html)
and/or
Megabyte Computing - Software Publisher Profile - CNET Download.com (http://download.cnet.com/mac/megabyte-computing/3260-20_4-10053405.html)

and without fiddling about with Property List Editor.app if you have the SL Developers stuff installed, or TextEdit or TextWrangler maybe as the preference files for both are in my users pref folder.

Even setting my SL 10.6.8 to use my QT 7 Pro to open ALL appropriate files, "QuickTime X" still often butts in and launches and wants to take over for some strange quirk.

And from what you say, it seems that things haven't improved much with Lion 10.7.x which I seldom use. :(

Even in Mountain Lion, QuickTime 7 Pro is my default. Thankfully, it still works. Not sure how long that'll continue.

<troll>The X stands for 'poo'.</troll>

It's just about the buggiest program Apple has ever released and in Lion it takes on a new level of crazy. I've had nothing but problems and yes I've had to deal with that, wait, I hit X to close instead of quitting so where'd the frigging movie go??? I can't reopen it, can't select it from the window menu, have to quit the applications and reopen it and hope that lion relaunches it without crashing.

I avoid it at all costs using 7 pro, Mpeg Streamclip, or VLC always instead.

There are some really stupidly obvious usability issues in this software.

The problem I have with VLC is the lack of responsive scrubbing or "live" fast-forward / rewind features. You click to fast forward, but the video remains frozen - you have to guess how far you've gone / what you're going to find. At least QTX does this correctly.

Another thing QTX does that bugs me is the lack of user input responsiveness. Say I download a trailer for a film. I double-click to open in QTX and usually I want to go to full-screen and play it. I have to bloody wait for each action to finish. Open. Full Screen. Play. I can't do what has always worked in QT7, which is double-click, Command-F, spacebar to open-full_screen-play. Yeah, it's a little thing, but I'm a power user... and it bugs me.

I Guess I Am The Only One Who Thinks QuickTime Player X Is Fine Piece Of Software. It's Worked For What I Have Used It For And I Have No Issues With It...

As For The Naming, QuickTime X Sounds A Bit Nicer In My Opinion.

The problem I have with VLC is the lack of responsive scrubbing or "live" fast-forward / rewind features. You click to fast forward, but the video remains frozen - you have to guess how far you've gone / what you're going to find. At least QTX does this correctly.

Another thing QTX does that bugs me is the lack of user input responsiveness. Say I download a trailer for a film. I double-click to open in QTX and usually I want to go to full-screen and play it. I have to bloody wait for each action to finish. Open. Full Screen. Play. I can't do what has always worked in QT7, which is double-click, Command-F, spacebar to open-full_screen-play. Yeah, it's a little thing, but I'm a power user... and it bugs me.

I hear ya. The other thing that drives me nuts both in Quicktime X and iTunes is if I'm watching a movie fullscreen and hit the spacebar to pause, the play button gets greyed out and I can't resume until I exit fullscreen. That might just be because the spacebar does something differently now than I expect but it's so ingrained I can't stop myself from doing it.

Today's annoyance...

I have a 5-minute video created in iMovie HD. I've exported at best quality, resulting in a .dv file.

Since iMovie HD doesn't have the direct-to-YouTube sharing option, I open the .dv file in QuickTime X.

Then I go to the "Share..." menu and ... all of the options are greyed out. Even the "Export to..." options are unavailable.

However - if you export from iMovie HD to a full-quality MP4, QuickTime X will make the sharing / export options available to you.

But nowhere - and I mean *nowhere* - is there any indication as to why this happens. iMovie HD's built-in "Help" is helpless (is there a more useless application in OS X?) and the Apple Discussions forum have no leads...

Silliness.