Despite all the warnings, I went ahead and upgraded to 3.0. I was hoping that I could get a USB device to work with it. No luck, but the device, a Polar IRDA monitor, doesn't work with VM-Ware either.

Before updating, I uninstalled Parallels Tools and turned off Shared Applications. I shut done each of my virtual machines and went for it. I had some hiccups (lost control of the mouse and keyboard for Mac OS X), until I reinstalled the tools. It now seems to work flawlessly.

Now, admittedly, I am not a power user of virtual OS's, so YMMV. However, in comparison with VM Ware, Parallels somes to be slightly faster. I have not had any crashes, and Windows move smoothly.

Frankly, I think that it is still a horse race. VM Ware with greater resources and experience will likely come out ahead, but I'm pulling for Parallels to stay in the ball game long enough to insure that this technology is rock solid for all users.