Here is an updated version with the Dorico default changed so that the tie starts and ends at the end/beginning of the noteheads. There are a very large number of defaults for each item - ex. for...

Yeah, that is MUCH nicer. It seems Dorico was released with some poor default settings. At least that's my impression, having worked a bit with the demo over the last 3 weeks. Now, if you can...

I think I got the Dorico output looking a little nicer by tweaking the program defaults regarding slur engraving and slur thickness / staff line thickness / barline thickness. (no manual adjustments...

I doubt it's a mistake actually - the synopsis talks about specific new features in 2012 (ScoreManager, etc). They probably couldn't use the synopsis for the Finale 2014 book just yet because it...

DOSBox should work just fine. I have used it for running old DOS apps. A virtual machine would work too, but is much more complicated, and then you need some kind of installation discs to install DOS...