[eluser]2think[/eluser]
Funny you mentioned scaffolding, that was actually something I and some others I've worked with on projects enjoyed for testing.
I think the fixes for 2.0 far outweigh the relegated/removed so its hard to say.
I actually am very much in your camp with the 2.0 release being better but not because it is faster (I didn't do any benchmarks or see any) but it just seems more well thought out.
What was left out and vital to new users? I think the community and user guide/documentation were one of Codeigniter's superior features
I really don't know if that was given as much attention as the codebase but that's just my opinion and could be very mistaken.
