As an exhibitor/(real)media participant this year, here are my comments:
Flying display - didn't get to see any of it until Friday afternoon, but overall pretty good. There are a few gaps in the program, but airplanes are finicky things and people just have to accept that sometimes they break or pilots get sick or have to be elsewhere at short notice (B-1B, F-22 etc)! Friday night fireworks were awesome, but it was lacking something...
Static display - better than any Avalon I can remember!
Exhibition - fewer top end exhibitors and a little quieter than usual. Hopefully it was mostly the bottom end of the market that dropped off, not the top end!
Crowds - huge crowds on sat and Sun. I wouldn't be surprised if records were broken. Took me 2.5 hours to get back to Melbourne on Sunday night thanks to stupid lane closures on Princes Freeway and those f%$#ing roadworks on the West Gate Bridge!!!