yea xform takes forever, but it's nice to have the options it gives!
For certain tasks, I will use the audio suite version as it works faster. If I want to change tempo of a full session, I'l go elastic, but if it's a pitch shift operation, I'll create a duplicate playlist and audiosuite it.
That way the pitch change can always be reverted instantly (and back!). For tempo stuff, I find that it can be a bit of a hunt, with many changes back and forth. That's where elastic is nice. The time consuming part is the initialization of the xform elastic AND the commit process after you've found the right speed.
audiosuite only has one render process...
ian