[Bf-funboard] Blender suggestions

[Anthony Zierhut]

I use Blender every day.  I work at Sony Pictures on a
large budget effects movie.  I do pre-vis and
animatics - which help the director pre-visualize
shots in motion before going through the incredible
expense of shooting.  Blender is being used
side-by-side with Maya and Lightwave in this manner. 
Since our work is only a "blue-print" for the finished
product, there's no need for fancy ray tracing, and
resolution never needs be higher than 700 x 300 px, so
Blender's speed is perfect for me.  My main tool has
been Adobe After Effects for 2d animation, but I
started tinkering with Blender on my own about two
years ago for 3d, and have just stuck with it.  It's
fast and it hasn't fallen down yet.  The Maya and
Lightwave guys are amazed at what Blender is capable
of (and in many cases the Blender renders look better,
if you ask me), and are shocked at it's price (you
can't beat zero).  I'm only writing all this to let
you know that I'm serious about Blender as a tool for
my profession.

Suggestions:
1.) I wish the 'buttons' screen didn't take up 1/3 of
the screen.  That's a lot of real estate.  A quick
keyboard shortcut for popping it up and down would be
great, or some kind of right-click (or combo
middle+right click) pop-up 'quad menu' as in 3dsMax. 

2.) A permanent horizontal animation slider would be
great, too.

3.) Some kind of way to integrate the NLA editor with
the IPO editor: Like clicking on and 'rolling down' an
NLA layer to view the IPO properties right under it,
then roll it back up.

4.) and what about two-monitor support?  I use two
side-by-side monitors and it's handy with Photoshop,
how about Blender?

Thanks for the opportunity to express my desires. 
Blender's great!

az.