And you're comparing OS4.0 to 4.1 because? For all intensive purposes it's a totally new product.
It's running on the same hardware,yes, but with huge updates like PCI Radeon, SATA cards, Solo-1 Sound card, ZorRAM, DB 3128, disk paging, etc etc... all the AmigaOS 4.1, Update 1, and Update 2 features, plus you will get Update 3 and other things...
It's true the only 4.x OS on Classics you can compare it against is the 4.0 release, but IMHO it's a totally different product with huge differences from 4.0. So it should be evaluated independently from 4.0, I think.
There are some info and links to videos at
http://blog.hyperion-entertainment.biz/ that might be worth checking out.
One thing that I liked was the native driver for the FastATA card and the mention of cooperation with Elbox. It seems to be more polished than the 4.0 release but I would wait for some reviews I think.
Also, who expect Blender to be fast? It's like expecting Crysis to be fast on a Pentium 233MHz, come on!