Michael,
Sorry to weight in on a older post, but has your team considered completely revitalizing the plug-in process? The major caveat to any new installation of an adobe product lineup for me is the excessive amount of time, effort, and homework involved in installing not just the programs, but the plugins. Invariably I end up losing plugins that sometimes cost as much as the program itself! Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a plugin manager similar to the app store? Developers would complain forever, but this is a concept that works. Suddenly, I’d know when Zaxwerks is updated, I’d be able to redownload all my plugins automatically on a fresh install, and gosh, I’d be able to write a review if a plugin sucked. There have been many times that I knew my main system needed a clean install, but Adobe products specifically limit my ability to do this – and crush my desire to even try.
It doesn’t even have to be an exclusive installation process, the old installation format could still work, but the ‘new’ process would be so much sexier for plug-in developers. Honestly, finding plugins for AE right now is bizarre when you think about it. Finding and researching plugins for After Effects should be feasible from within the application itself.
Has there been any talk of something like this?