The destruction of Vulcan worked for me mostly because they killed Spock's mother. I very nearly did the exact same physical reaction Spock himself did, sort of surging forward to try to catch her. I was *shocked* (she didn't die for a long time in the original universe), and wasn't any *less* shocked the second time I saw it.

The other problem with destroying Vulcan is that if you're a Trek fan, as I am, you know they muck with timelines all the time and that at the end it all gets fixed, so it didn't have the right impact until holy crap the movie is over and VULCAN IS STILL EXPLODED.

In fact, that might be why Amanda's death hit me as hard or harder the second time. I *knew*, that time, that it wasn't going to get fixed...