Spaces is broken

I love the idea of Spaces. When I first got Leopard, I was quite excited by it But the execution in those early days left a lot to be desired and disappointed, I turned it off.

A few weeks ago a friend reminded me of Spaces, and I remembered how much I liked it. So I decided to give it another go to see if it worked for me.

Nope.

Two of my most used programs are Lightroom (for when I have my photographer's hat on) and Word (for when I am playing writer). Both are broken by Spaces, or possibly vice versa.

I had my spaces set up so that Space 1 was me writing, space two was me online and space three was me as a photographer.

Let's say I'm over surfing the Digital Wedding Forum in Safari, and decide to go do some work in Lightroom. I use Apple-Tab to switch to Lightroom and...

Nothing happens. The menu bar changes, but I do not switch from Space 2 to Space 3. I have to do that manually. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Word, though. Same scenario. I'm working in Word and I switch over to Space 2 to do some online research. And the document I'm working on comes with me. How convenient. Except when I try to switch back to that document. In this case, the document doesn't come back with me to Space 1. So I switch to space 2 again and try and just click on the document, but as soom as Word comes into focus, I switch back to Space 1, leaving the document back in Space 2. So again, I have to manually change to space 2, and this time, the Word document is accessible.

Not sure what it is. Maybe it's multiple spaces and dual monitors confuses the system. Maybe it's just poor coding. All I know is it is annoying. And so I have given up Spaces again. My last best hope shall be Snow Leopard, whenever that is released.

How bout you? Using Spaces? Does it work for you?