iDraw - US$24 Vector App. An open drawing project. Indesign. Illustrator. Photoshop. 3D zBrush. Flash. After Effects. iMovie. FFMpeg Video Encoding. Avidemux - Film Cutting App. GIF Maker. Free online paint program. Flame Painter is a unique paint program, it belongs to my 'I am an Artist' experimental project.
I think with tools which inspires you, everyone can be an artist. You can try it here, change different brush settings and paint your own flame paintings. Flash vs. After Effects. Interesting post- plenty of food for thought.
I guess ultimately I would have to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder... the program you are more familiar with is probably the right choice for you for most situations. It really comes down to the style of the production. I would never slam on After Effects because its a great program for many things and Adobe makes powerful, stable software that I love working with. Ive used After Effects quite a bit, and would prefer to use it in certain situations, but having worked in Flash for a while now Im honestly blown away by the things that can be done and the ways that you can work with a problem scene. Nearly everything you listed as a strength with AE (except IK and some keyboard shortcuts) is also fully possible in Flash.