In my opinion, the effects editor window is poorly designed, the controls are too small and it's awkward to use.  Take a lesson from Softimage which you used to own.  Also the window should stay on top until you're done editing the effect.  Right now, it vanishes if you click on anything else and you have to dig it up again, and again and again...

To summarize, it's not up to the standard of the rest of the MC interface at all.  It's like a cheap tack-on thing that was thrown in at the last minute and never finished.  It's too small, and too much like playing pick-up-sticks.

It would be nice to have a real effects interface that matches the main one.

I have to agree. I have been using Avid for 13 years and back then on Version 5 the effects editor was enough. Now however things have become far more complex and the current layout is simply not good enough.