It is true MP10's (MCE uses it) database is not that great... but I have over 500 albums now in my MCE and its just fine on my HT P4 3Ghz. They have had some minor patches for this issue and the MCE dev team assures *us* that Vista MCE will have even better performance in this area.

I've tried a LOT of HTPC software from MythTV to Sage, to Beyond and MCE is by far my favorite. If Apple's work for you fine but iTunes = the devil to me so I haven't even considered their HTPC solution.

-Ben
HT v2.0
HT v1.0