I just finished another round of troubleshooting my video project.

Project: To edit video clips with audio and pop up (PiP), transition, FX, background music, and finish as a BD-R movie.

I'm on PD13 build 2604, latest update as of this post. Windows 8.1 i5@2.5GHz with 6 GB ram.

Pointers:
1. Keep the preview quality in editing at normal quality most of the time and that can give you a much quicker preview of transition or effect. If you do need to preview in detail, go ahead and put it at HD. Once you're done checking your preview, switch back to Normal and continue your work.
2. Be careful with the Magic Music track. It seems that if you move the audio clip off the track by mistake, that will freeze your project. It's been happening consistently for me. I prefer to just bring in my own audio clip/music and put it in one of the many audio tracks.
3. A more powerful pc will definitely have less "program not responding" pause, but PD almost always will come back, it's just nuisance and added editing time.
4. PD display is not perfect at all in the timeline. Some editing will make the audio and video tracks seem to be out of sync visually, but it is actually not so. If you restart the program and open your project, it is actually fine. Sometimes there are preview glitches, once you save the file and restart PD, it will be fine.
5. Produce function seems to be solid, at least for mp4 1920x1080 30f
6. Create Disc seems to have more problem, in particularly with disc menu and that's where I get the most freezes and sometimes need to force shut down the system to reboot.
Solution: Start a new project with nothing, just go directly to Create Disc menu, let the built-in and your custom menu load up. Once done, go directly to open your project which you intend to create disc, that seem to bypass the chance of having the "check menu" freeze problem.
7. One of the post I read said that the NewBlue FX seems to be causing disc creation being stuck at a certain percentage, I got stuck at 16%. This is where my troubleshooting leads me to this posting. My conclusion is none of those, at least in my case. I have fancy menu with audio, video, 2 sequences and customized menu, but the culprit is the Motion Thumbnails. Switch it off, the disc producing process just run without any problem.
8. Create disc to folder, which will save you from turning your BD into beautiful decorations. Be very careful with folder, if you cancel your "burn", PD will try to remove the created folder. If you happen to have your files produce in a folder with files in, it may just wipe everything for you. Make a new folder!
9. Dolby digital vs DTS, that's something you will have to decide on what you prefer. But, if you choose DD, the burn menu somehow will grey out the "Enable Intel Video Sync" option. That actually is a function that can make the create disc process quicker. Unless you hate DTS or you have an audio system that cannot decode DTS, then use DD.

Hope some of the thoughts above can make your life a little easier with PD13.