For those that have the 2006 ed, how do you rate it? I have gotten the impression that the paradim shifting from fixed pipelined to shader based graphics. I have not seen any negative comments on the text but want some opinions before I make a decision to add it to my toget list.

If you are referring to the "Orange Book" aka OpenGL Shading Language by Randi Rost, then yes get it, it's as important as the "Red Book" IMO you should own both if you are coding in OpenGL...