Jim,
Imagine that you've created a 5 minute video that you'd like to cut down to 60 seconds. On other NLEs, you could put the 5 minute video in your source monitor, mark in and out points for the part you want and make an overwrite or insert edit. When you do this, you'd find the 10 shots you chose in the new timeline, instead of one big clip with your 5 minute sequence name. The Premiere way, you cannot know where each shot starts and ends, you cannot match frame, you cannot make an EDL.
Premiere forces you to open the 5 minute sequence, select the clips you want, copy them, open your one minute sequence, and paste or paste insert. Most of that process requires time consuming mousing all over the screen. All this would take a few quick keystrokes in FCP or Avid. I'll bet I could make rough version of such a cut down at least 5 times as fast on the other NLEs.
Best,
Larry