I agree, Scott, that it could run faster. For me, the speed at this point has to be compared to 1) Opening an Illustrator document, 2) Saving it in Version 8 format, 3) loading Classic, 4) opening CollectPro, and then, at last, 5) starting the collection process. Art Files eliminates steps 1-4 (okay, 4 is replaced by "open Art Files), which saves me a lot of time. I don't load Classic for anything else.

The process does seem to crawl especially during font collection, but on the other hand the interface is fairly clean and it runs native in X. I will wait until v1 release to rate it, but so far it is definitely on the right track for me.

(I want to put in one more vote, while I'm here, for collecting original embedded graphics too!)