i dont praise nvidia drivers - i just wish ATI had some of their features in their drivers as well.
Per-application settings, including crossfire profile is all i want.
Hmm not sure I follow. There might be some minor differences, but when it comes to available 'features,' pretty much anything that's applicable to your hardware, is available no matter the manufacturer.
Most people seem to be fine with using either NV Panel or CCC. But for 'power users,' there's Nhancer and ATi Tray Tools (or Riva Tune for some).
If you know what you're doing, one program can achieve for your hardware what the other can.
The only thing I would say ATi drivers lack, is staying up to date on Crossfire profiles at the pace Nvidia might. Which means we have to go in and in some fashion or another, tell the card to treat the game as one it's driver already has a profile for. Which isn't a big deal, often you just rename the executable and force AA...
What gets me is how fast drivers come out, and unless they're released alongside new hardware, the actual changes are almost miniscule for your average user. They rarely increase performance(especially by a noticeable gain), and in ATi's case, seem to forget to add profiles for newly released software.
It's almost as if drivers (in between new hardware releases) are more like hotfixes that rectify any miscellaneous bugs/glitches and issues, that affect maybe 10% of users.
The only consolation there, is that you can choose from the myriad and plethora of driver versions, and barring any oddities, should work fine as long as it supports your hardware.