You're about to read a highly subjective and somewhat argumentative post which are my own opinions on the shortcoming of Magento and why I no longer enjoy working with the framework. Which doesn't mean I'm totally free of it at work :)

Short Background

I've been using Magento for around 2 years and during that time I have worked with both Magento CC and Magento Enterprise on a range of projects with budgets ranging from $15k - 250k. I've contributed open source extensions, reported bugs to the core issue queue and overall used the platform somewhat extensively.

A few months back at work we had the requirement for a Magento gift extension which turned out to be more of a hassle than one would think. After weeks of testing the variety of  modules out there the decision was made to write our own.

Lucas wrote the module in his own time and is now marketing the extension via proxiblue.com.au. The extension brings a few nice features not offered by other extensions such as using existing products as gifts and gift quantity limits. The extension is also compatible in multi-store configurations.

Funny little problem this one. Magento Enterprise 1.11 does not use the theme name as part of the FPC uri. Therefore when switching themes within a package using the design exceptions you still see the cached version of the site. This is obviously a major issue when you're using the design exceptions to load a mobile theme.

Solution

Pretty straightforward, add the theme name to the FPC uri. It doesn't need much explaining so grab the source on Github.

I finally got around to publishing my Magento Mega Menu extension. It's fairly basic at this point but stands as a good starting point for developers.

I'm sure many developers like me have worked with the same technologies for quite a few years and then there comes a point when you find yourself having to learn a new technology quick or like me you find yourself in a new and very different role with a handful of new technologies to learn.