Video editors - you get what you pay for

Since I splashed out on a home video camera a year or two back, I have spent a lot of time exploring editing programs, after upgrading my computer to provide more grunt. At the time, I bought Adobe Premiere Elements, which is mid-way between a low-end program such as MovieMaker (Windows) and iMovie (Mac) and the fully professional programs. Mid-range software of this kind is sometimes called "prosumer". Premiere Elements has most features you would need to produce a very respectable end product, although it has one or two funny quirks that frustrate me. But I wondered whether there were any free programs that could do a bit better than MovieMaker or iMovie. The particular limitation of these two is they only allow one video track (although the Vista version of MovieMaker has expanded that) which renders it impossible to do many standard effects.
After a long search, I can tell you one thing for sure - you get what you pay for, in this field at least. After testing close to a dozen free programs, I found only two that were better than what I already had.
TrakAxPC is a well designed piece of software, whose best feature is the ability to match music with picture. It shows you each bar, so you can change photos on the beat. Sadly, it still allows only one video track, but it is a nice hybrid between video editor and music sequencer.
Photostage slideshow is another beautifully designed program that specialises in making slideshows of still photographs. It has a particularly good pan and zoom control that is just so easy to use. Beats anything else I have seen.
Of the rest - in a word, don't waste your time. Here are some of my conclusions:
Jahshaka: An open-source project, which appears to be still very much under development. The interface looks promising, but the program kept crashing every time I tried to do anything.
t@b ZweiStein: This used to be called just ZweiStein, but has some fancy new marketing. Unfortunately, despite getting good reviews all over the place, the interface is totally inscrutable, and despite a fair amount of experience using video editors, I could not figure out how to use it. The help files were also hopeless.
SuperDVD creator - An attractive interface, but the free version offers nothing more than MovieMaker or iMovie.
SuperDVD Video Maker - Same comments as above.
Here is a very full list of video editors, both free and commercial. Surprisingly, it leaves off the main choice of professionals, the Mac-based Final Cut Pro.