It’s just a different way of thinking. Personally I prefer the nodes of Shake or Fusion as a much quicker and more intuitive way of working, and most of the high end industry follows this route, but AE is so fantastic in many ways for so many things it has its place as well. For a complex comp AE’s memory management is not up to par, and precomping can make it difficult to track what is going on in comparison to nodes, but for all other purposes it is as good if not better at the tasks presented to it.
Chris
Cafe FX