Angry Angel wrote:Anyway, to get to the point: Which version of Premiere is your personal favorite?
Premiere Pro. 5.1 was nice, but Pro beats it easily.
Angry Angel wrote:I'd preferably like to use one with real-time previews. The whole scrubbing the time-line thing to see your transitions etc.... uh... yeah, whatever

Um, they <i>all</i> do real-time previews, at least on parts that contain transitions (and other effects). You often can't get Premiere Pro to preview <b>unaltered</b> footage in realtime (at least, not without a lot of scrubbing beforehand), but I don't consider that a major issue.
Angry Angel wrote:What I did~ like was the little transparency/opacity rubberband in the video tracks, but it seems Premiere Pro discarded that function. I found something similar, but really dont like it as much.
You can still find that; it merely requires bringing up the right track view option in the timeline ("Show Opacity Handles" I think it is?). However, I don't bother with it anymore, as I find keyframing to be easier and more precise.