Nice lady.....horrible professor. It seems to me that if you have the time to prepare to instruct a class full of students trying (or not) to pay attention and understand what you are talking about that you should at least be consistent and know what you are talking about!! Russel made all kinds of mistakes in every lecture and was often very vague when discussing certain topics.
The T.A. makes all the difference. You don't learn anything in lecture (or from looking at her lecture handouts that are very confusing). If you have a good T.A. who will help you understand what is going on and what you need to know, then you'll do fine in the class.
The final has very little to do with stuff you learn in lecture. It's open note, which means she expects you to somehow take what she thought you learned in lecture and apply it to all sorts of situations that have no similarity to the labs you did. I would reccomend Pang anyday over Russel.
Last thing, she wrote the lab manual and it has all kinds of procedural and conceptual mistakes in it. Really wants to make you take her class huh?