The craft of notation is a complex and tedious one. Making software to do this is no doubt very challenging. The test is: "Would this be quicker by hand?" Ideally, the software should be intuitive and simple on the surface, and have "power-user" settings just below the surface that allow us to make settings that speed things up, and make things clear. In short, it needs to be kept simple, but with the power, flexibility and speed to make it worth choosing over the pen.

My first few sessions with Sibelius had more than the usual number of snags and confusing moments. Fortunately, Sibelius has excellent support which answered questions within 24 hours.

There are aspects of the program that I found needlessly cumbersome. For example, the keypad has a button for note values, a generic "rests" button and a "dotted" button. I think I'd have preferred to press one button for a dotted note, rather than to have to press a note value plus a dot, or to have to press the rests button plus a note value plus a dot. It does give more range of possible values with fewer buttons, but it's cumbersome and it creates problems when editing existing music.

I chose a swing piece in 6/4 which I wanted to playback in 6. Sibelius insists on forcing a dotted-half to be a beat. There was no way to change this, but I could slow the tempo down to 33 bpm, and set the click to do sub-divisions.
Sibelius allows you to have straight-eighths with "swung" playback, but it doesn't let you input "swung" notes without adding a step to unswing them.

Along with time-signature settings, Sibelius should allow the user to define what value equals a beat, and what kind of click we want. It should also have an edit grid which the user could set to any note value (including tuplets) so that notes can be nudged left & right by grid points.

The music itself looks good, the spacing is easily managed (better than Finale).

Admittedly, I have only spent a few hours with the program & manuals, but I can safely say that in the "battle" between Sibelius & Finale, the differences are more subtle than I had hoped. Both programs require dealing with some limitations, and confusing interface elements. Sibelius does more hand-holding than Finale.

Sibelius gives better feedback for what is in the score. Selecting a note plays the correct sounding notes / chords. (Selecting transposing notes in Finale sounds notes as they are written -- not as they should sound!)

My most greatest wish for a future (UB) version of Sibelius is to have a user-defined shortcut/commands list. Have a long list of navigational commands, note & rest values, nudge, etc. etc. and let the user assign key combos and MIDI notes to any of them.

It is possible that Sibelius could evolve into a more clear and usable system. The problem is that in order for the software to become that, current users would have to let go of the complicated procedures they've learned and replace them with simpler more intuitive ones.

Perhaps Sibelius will prepare for a little face-lift.