finale is uber-powerful and can be incredibly powerful when you've learned your shortcuts and where everything is. i did some copyist writing when i was younger and made a lot of money translating some crazy composer's ideas into a useable page of music. sibelius is more difficult when it comes to this kind of stuff.
also, in 'the real world', everyone uses finale. you're expected to be able to use it if you want to get out there and do notation work or something.
something that hasn't been mentioned is Notion. it's supposed to be a crossover between a daw and notation software. in particular, it sounds excellent and is easy to use, particularly in performance, from the 'tap' function that finale recently (poorly) implemented. the brass don't sound that good, but the strings are luscious.