Dorico is trying to be disruptive in a market where quality notation is written every day in the other major programs.
I’d love for all of my work to be 10% input and 90% engraving, but most of my work is predicated on 99% fast, accurate input and 1% engraving (for clarity and for the purpose of avoiding ambiguity).
I can get exactly the result I want in the program I use already. If Dorico improves my life, I’ll use it - but that largely means (for me) the quickest input.
It’s not the case that it’s ‘just what I’m used to’. I’m quick in Sibelius, I’m quick in Finale, I was quicker than both in Igor. This stuff matters.
Pitch comes before rhythm!
When placing my pencil to paper I cannot write a rhythm until I place a note head and accidental in the correct position (pitch) on the staff.
I am so disappointed that this VERY BASIC option is not offered in Dorico. So basic → am I such a fool to make this assumption…
Will this feature/choice be added in the future?
in the meantime, Back to Speedy entry…
Sibelius eventually added a pitch-before-duration option, and Finale (via CAPS-LOCK) added a duration-before-pitch option to Speedy. I hope that eventually Dorico will add an option for pitch-before-duration too, which for me would make Dorico more useful for composition as opposed to after-the-fact notation.
For the present I am satisfied to see the Team follow its roadmap while I hope for the future.
I think there must be many Finale users like me, who were paying close attention to the development of Dorico. For me this issue is pretty much a deal breaker. Now I’m relegated to hoping that Dorico will at some point implement an option for pitch before rhythm, or that Finale will adopt better playback. Either way, I’m sure it will be a long wait.
I was in the first 1000 buyers if Finale.
You may have a different experience than I did, but I got used to Dorico’s way in just a few days of use. I had previously used Finale for hours every day, for about five years. This really wasn’t an issue for me.
When I started this post, Dorico’s note input style was a big concern to me. Since then, I re-engraved about 8 works into Dorico to date and now I’m engraving faster and with fewer errors then I did in Finale (I set up some shortcuts to help me with speed). Another very important thing is PAGE FORMATTING. I spend a fraction of the time formatting pages in Dorico then I did in Finale. All in all, I’m very happy with Dorico and confident in it’s future.
Well, the first version of Finale I used was 95, and the last one I bought (2014.5) still had some of the “95” bugs in it. So you are likely to be a least half right 
It’s fascinating to see such heated differences of opinion on this topic… You’re hitting the same number of key strokes either way. I personally think there is some genius in Dorico’s current method: when you have rhythmic runs such as a string of 16th notes, you only have to type the rhythm once and then can zip right through all the notes. When you are changing values your key strokes are the same, but when the note values are the same I believe you actually save time.
That said, I’m sure it would be to some people’s benefit to add either option, but I also sincerely doubt it should be considered such a big “issue” for some people.
The current duration-before-pitch question is probably moot for those transcribing music already fixed elsewhere, but the ability to audition/verify pitch-before-duration is valuable to composers in some situations.
I compose in Dorico almost daily. I have dorico hooked up to my midi-capable pipe organ console. It’s tremendously easy to hit enter to enter notes when you are ready and hit escape when you want to play around to hear things. As soon as you’re ready just hit enter again and move the carat over one space. Easy.
You mean “caret”, right ?
Oui! Pardon… 
Should have said Finale version 1.0. When Finale was started by Coda Music. serial # 0986