FCP tends to be more popular amongst professional editors, although this can also be attributed to the popularity of Mac vs Windows in the same market. It is often said that FCP is more stable and/or faster than Premiere, but this is more a reflection on the operating system than the software. Having said this, in my experience Premiere is very stable on a well-configured Windows system.
The next version of Premiere will see a return to Macintosh support so it will be interesting to see how the two compare on the same platform.
Both Premiere and FCP are standalone video editing applications, and both are available as part of larger software bundles. The bundles are highly recommended in both cases, giving you much more power and flexibility over things like audio, graphics, etc.
The practical differences between Premiere and FPC are minor. It's also worth noting that when one application has a feature the other lacks, the gap is often closed in the next round of releases. Don't base your decision on a feature of one product unless you are sure it isn't going to be introduced or upgraded by the other product in the near future.
If you want the best and money is no object, FCP is usually the way to go. On the other hand, you can get essentially the same functionality from Adobe for a lot less money. This is especially true if you already own a PC capable of running Premiere but would have to buy new hardware for FCP.
One fact in Premiere's favour that is that it integrates very well with After Effects (video compositing) and Photoshop (for graphics). Both these products are very highly regarded, industry standard software. When purchased as part of a software bundle, Adobe products form a seamless package that operates almost like a single application.
FCP is a very good editing tool and I have used this quite a bit and I still do sometimes. Unfortunately I can't say too many good things about FCP because I'm just so used to using Premiere Pro. FCP compared to Avid is like Honda versus a Ferrari. The problem I face with FCP among other things, is that it runs only on Macs and as everyone knows Macs are fairly expensive compared to similar specification PC system. With the integration of Intel chips in Macs things change a little, in the mean time I'll stick to Premiere.
Avid used to be my least favourite editing software because it is just so different from other editing packages and you have to be very technical to learn to use an Avid system, but over time I have come to love it. Avid comes in all price ranges because there are so many different types of Avid systems (Avid Xpress, Xpress HD, Adrenaline, DS etc.) Some you can run on a regular PC others you need special hardware. The thing I like about Avid is that the effects are real-time, meaning when I apply a transition or something I don't have to wait for it to render to see the effect; I can see it right away. I also like it because of it's color correcting capabalities, it's integration with ProTools and the ability to customize everything. One thing I don't like about Avid is the way it handles media files. It dumps all media (audio/video) into one OMFI directory. Which becomes almost impossible to backup or manage manually.
One final word; it doesn't matter what you use to edit as long as you know what you are doing. World's best software in the hands of an amature will not get you an Oscar.
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