I must say that the finale was waaaaaaaay too long, and it had some pretty cheesy moments. I, for one, enjoyed it immensely!
I don't care, I'll admit that I'm a loser, I loved it.
Seriously, I just watched it back again on Tivo (I had a bunch of friends from work over last night for an "Idol" party & things were a bit too loud to hear & see everything - YEAH, that's right, I had an IDOL party, screw you!) and I thought it was great! Everyone looked gorgeous & sounded awesome. And yes, Taylor won, so while I'm not thrilled (I was rooting for Chris or Elliot) I'm pretty satisfied. Taylor AND Kat both got brand new cars & records deals, so I don't think anyone needs to boohoo for Kat.
Highlights: I could not believe the artists they had on that show last night!
PRINCE?!?! Are you kidding me? Prince doesn't do this type of thing, I was so excited when he came out. He was fabulous.
Hilarious that he walked offstage before Seacrest could get to him & try to shake his hand.
Mary J. Blige & Elliot were fantastic on "One" (woman gave me chills when she did it with U2 this year on The Grammy's and she gave me chills again) and although "That's What Friends Are For" usually induces vomitting for me, Dionne Warwick looks & sounds fantastic. The Burt Bacharach (sp) medley was fun. And "Don't Stop" was not bad at all, IMO! I was just thrilled to finally see a Mac tune on this show. Chris doing that tune with Live was very cool, and Paris was in her element singing with Al Jarreau.
Anyone notice that Mandisa ended up front & center at the end of the ladies' medley?
Wonder if that was accidental.
Lowlights: WTF happened to Clay? I don't think he looked bad, just really different. My mom asked me this morning "who was that guy that came out to sing to that goofy kid?" I had to explain it was Clay with some weirdo haircut, she had no idea.
HEY! I just realized who he looks like now - the gay brother in Wedding Crashers who's in love with Vince Vaughn & paints his portrait! 
Can Toni Braxton please learn to project her voice? I couldn't hear a damn thing out of her mouth.
Can Meatloaf please learn to get his timing right? He was way off on the first verse. The rest was OK, he doesn't sound all that great these days, but Kat played it up really well with him on stage, good theatrics.
Can we stop the whole "Kelly Pickler is a cute dumb blond" act? I was fooled for a while, until I read that one day she said "I'm sometimes confused by Simon's terminology." Really. Terminology? That's a pretty big word for a dumb blond.
Whatever. I like her haircut, though.