Why quality is expressed in Decibels for the ART renderer? Is it running on sound card?
Those icons look horrible. I hope it will be easy to get used to them...
My guess would be because noise is often expressed in dB given that it's nothing more than a ratio between two values, and the quality parameter in ART is obviously on a logarithmic scale then.
On another subject, I don't get all the people talking about killing off max - exact same stuff always being said with every new max version. Max has the second largest user base out of all ADSK products after AutoCAD. According to people from Autodesk I talked to, and some other industry insiders, the ratio of Max to Maya users is anywhere between 4:1 and 8:1 depending on who you're talking to. Financially, and in which ever other way you put it, it would make zero sense to kill max. I'll wait until I get to test the release before I judge how much/little effort ADSK put into this one. :)