OK, so the short answer is buy Vegas -- Amazon, Newegg, & Fry's have been having sales, as low as $0 aFter MIR. Sony Creative Software's been running sales themselves -- if they stick to their pattern there will be more sales this spring. And Newegg had some very good deals if you wanted the full-on Vegas Pro, selling boxed sets with the old version of Sound Forge, which I *think* with one or two of their offers included a free upgrade to the new version of Sound Forge too. At any rate, Vegas is far from perfect, but comparatively speaking it's not bad at all.
Now, the Aimersoft Video Editor, which does appear to be *for the most part* identical to the Wondershare editor. Gone are the MainConcept licensed encoders -- Hello ffmpeg. Installation is not cool in that you wind up with the Aimersoft Helper Compact with its own folder in Common Files, & a large number of registry entries -- the Wondershare version has the Wondershare Helper Compact. Not a lot of info on it, I suspect it's annoy-ware, & I seem to remember something like this giving GOTD regulars fits a long while back. And those running XP will get a lot more installation baggage as imapi is added too. That said, *If* it behaves itself re: the Helper, the Aimersoft Video Editor isn't bad for what it is, a basic NLE [Non Linear Editor] with many video tracks possible.
To use it you import your audio/video assets, dragging them onto the timeline -- it shows one video track with a PIP [Picture In a Picture] track below it... add a video to the pip track & another one appears. For all practical purposes there's really no difference between a pip track & the video track, other than you can control the frame size & placement with the pip tracks -- at full size it's a regular video track, & reduced it's PIP. Below the bottom pip track in an audio track.
As pointed out in the comments the audio handling could be better, but to me that's more a glass half empty way of looking at it -- there is not an abundance of low cost, usable video editors, & for free it's pretty cool, as long as the Helper software behaves itself... Vegas does MUCH more in the way of audio, but then it started life as the 1st video app from a company that only made audio software, & the pro version is a full multitrack DAW. I think for many [most?] the audio handling in the Aimersoft Video Editor will be OK -- if you need more than that, take the audio out of your finished video & import it into a good multi-track audio editor. The way I'd do it, FWIW, is open the video's audio track 1st, using it as a guide with the original audio file(s) as you opened them on another track or tracks. Match up the waveforms, and do a better job of fading/joining. The only extra work would be replacing the audio in the video file once you're done -- you'd still go through the same actual editing in the NLE if it could handle it -- & you'd be saving yourself quite a chunk of change if you compare the price of something like Vegas Pro & today's GOTD. :)
The FX & transitions in the Aimersoft Video Editor aren't too bad, but that's generally something people new to video go wild over for a little while, & then they realize that pro videos do not use that stuff for the most part -- usually just a "L" fade, where the video does a fade transition & the audio from one clip [left or right on the timeline], goes for a second or so into the other clip before they too fade together.
Exporting [rendering] your project to video should remind you of most of the converters that have been on GOTD. You can type in your own frame sizes, & it sticks which is cool -- like most of these converters it will not use codecs you already have installed in Windows, so for an intermediate video file, one that I could import into another app, I could select HD mpg2, setting the frame size to 720*480, & that way I got a really high bit rate that for practical purposes is close to lossless. The only downside is that the result showed the PAL 601 colorspace, with no way to change that in the GUI that I could find. I'm not saying you need to render an intermediate file -- just that you can if you want which is nice, added flexibility.
That all said, the way I installed the Aimersoft Video Editor -- just before the power went out, which is why this is so late... There's basically one file that may have to be registered with Windows, VacDump.ax . You may already have a Dump filter installed & registered, & it may work fine, or you may need to register this one. You can use a utility like Nirsoft's free InstalledCodec 1st, or just register the Aimersoft file & see if you have any problems. I use Regdrop to register 32 bit files with Windows -- I have a copy on my desktop -- but you can find all sorts of tools &/or detailed instructions [some with Pictures] if you Google. Otherwise the Aimersoft Video Editor runs fine -- no other registry stuff needed, including for the Helper app.
I copied the 3 folders after installing in a VM -- 1 in My Documents, 1 in Program Files, 1 in Common Files -- but Universal Extractor works to get you the program's main folder just as well. The registration or activation codes are stored in the registry too, but those are system specific -- once you start the app you have to register it, & cannot copy that data from one Windows install to another. If you download & install the optional, added FX & such from the GUI, the files you download will be stored in the Aimersoft folder in My Documents. The full install includes 3 fonts -- AGENCYB.TTF, AGENCYR.TTF, & HELN.TTF -- though I didn't add them to my win7 copy & *so far* so good.