Mac Pro Thunderbolt, USB3, etc. hardware upgrades...

Question

Feeling a bit left out in 2 years since I bought my Mac Pro with no real hardware upgrades for my Mac Pro.
Can anyone comment on what they've done to keep their Mac Pro updated with the latest?
- Thunderbolt.  I was surprised this wasn't in the updated 2012 Mac Pro.  Has anyone heard of any third party thunderbolt cards?  I've gone ahead and purchased a Thunderbolt hard drive for my Mac Book Air that also has a FireWire 800 port.  I'm planning on using Apple's Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter (intended for MBA and MBP laptops) in reverse and use the adapter on the Thunderbolt hard drive to connect it to my Mac Pro tower's FireWire 800 port.  At least this way when Thunderbolt does arrive for us I can just stop using the adapter.  Apple genius said this should work, but I guess the proof will be when I go to copy lots of data (something Macs already struggle with) http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A
- USB 3.0.  Has anyone found a good reliable USB 3.0 card for the Mac Pro?  Again I was surprised Apple left this out of the 2012 refresh.  I like the faster speeds over FireWire 800 and if folks have found a good working USB 3.0 card that works I'll gladly put one in my tower.  I looked at the La Cie USB 3 PCI add on card, but haven't heard anything about native support for it from Apple.  http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10493
- Display card.  Anyone have recommendations on a better display card than the default one Apple shipped?  Apple's original ATi Radeon HD 5770 works like crap with HDMI (mini display port or DVI), especially to my new Samsung 27" HDMI monitor.  I'd love to get a new Apple Thunderbolt Display and refuse to buy the antiquated Apple Cinema Display.  Seeing Apple's new Mac Mini with both HDMI and Thunderbolt gives me hope, but the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset seems pathetic.  I did like that Apple gave the new iMac a NVIDIA Kepler GPU so maybe there is hope for the Mac Pro yet.
- Anyone find anything useful to put in the extra optical drive slot?  The dream of a BlueRay recorder with Lightscribe support and Mac drivers seems long dead.  I'd love to see some innovation like a removable SSD drive bay or something better than the coffee cup holder it has become.
Ramblings on what has and hasn't been working for me...
If there are Mac Pro users who like to work in the dark I would highly recommend the Moshi Luna backlighted keyboard.  It works great and allows me to video edit without having to strain my eyes with uncessary room lights in order to see the keyboard.  It sure beats the USB powered LED I was using to shine a light on Apple's extended keyboard!  I still have to switch from Apple's Magic Trackpad to Magic Mouse when I bootcamp to Windows 7 (the trackpad drivers are not robust enough under Windows unless someone has found a solution). 
I also ran into a horrific issue with Paragon's HFS+ Win 7 drivers hosing my Mac drives when I tried to use Sony's PMB software to copy HD movies to my Mac drives (NEVER AGAIN).
Any thoughts you have I'd love to hear!

Answer 1

Asus makes a card but it only works with certain motherboards made by them. Doesn't exactly have to be installed 'at the factory' but could be interpreted as such.
Until I start seeing PCIe graphics cards that support Thunderbolt either directly with a Thunderbolt connector on the card or an internal Display Port to Thunderbolt connector I'm not sure I would want a display that connects only with Thunderbolt.
HDMI and Display Port is well tested technology. Many displays are available.
Limited (i.e. none to my knowledge) options at this time for discreet graphics cards that support Thunderbolt. So either you use either the Intel integrated graphics chipset (low performance) for video or a non-Thunderbolt display with a discreet graphics card.
If you daisy chain devices you have to share the bandwidth much like you do with Firewire.
Thunderbolt is great for laptops a small footprint computers because it extends the PCIe architecture outside of the computer giving you the option of using higher data capacities associated with PCIe. But since Mac Pros already have four PCIe slots why would you want to use up 4 PCIe lanes for a dedicated interface that is still in it's infancy?