I don't have the full list of grievances that most Quicken "power" users had against Essentials...something along the lines of lack online payments, lack of check printing and limited investment tracking. In any case, I long ago moved on and will be sticking with Essentials, which suits my needs...
Intuit is supposedly going to be releasing a version of Quicken 2007 for the Mac in the next few months that works under Lion (I wonder if it will be called Quicken 2007 in 2012?) Not sure if Quicken Essentials will be end of lifed at that point...the story said there would be a way to migrate...
That review is nearly nine months old. You can definitely schedule recurring transactions. Probably the only way to categorize those transactions is with a split.
There's a Budget menu item with an option to create and edit budgets. Not sure whether it will suit your needs...it's not a feature I use. For quite some time now it's had the ability to track investment information either by connecting with supported banks/brokerages or by setting up your...
Not sure what features you are looking for. Quicken Essentials has received several incremental updates and I'm quite happy with it. If as you say, you are picky, you probably won't be satisfied.
Intuit rolled out their update a few weeks ago that allows investment information to be manually added as well as the export of tax data to Turbo Tax and check printing.
Just got an e-mail from Intuit that they are dropping the price on Quicken Essentials by 20 bucks. For people that have already bought the product, $20 will be credited to your charge card. Not sure how they will handle sales that weren't made directly through Intuit. In addition, it mentions...
The beta feedback forum is gone because Intuit built a feedback tool into its latest beta release. It's hardly dead. I heard a lot of people bitching about it when it was announced over a year ago, but I have to say that it's something I will definitely buy when it's released.
Quicken 2007 works fine. I've been using Quicken on the Mac since '99 and have had no problems with it. A completely redesigned version is coming in the fall.