Today I tested two panoramic stitch programs. PTGui 8.3.10 for 70 EUR (approx. 130 EUR Pro) and Microsoft’s ICE 1.3.5.0 for free. Microsoft ICE is very easy to use. The program does all the work steps by itself, the result is convincing. The algorithm of PTGUI seems unchanged since version 5 today. The image associations are identified very bad, so you usually have even more trouble. Conclusion: Microsoft ICE is surprisingly easy to use and instantly impressive results.
PTGUI: http://www.ptgui.com/
Microsoft ICE: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/