I think in the development of Flash the problem is, that there should have been made an important choise much earlier: There is that irritating ambiguity of a design-tool and programming-tool: Why not going on with developing more handy interface-solutions like the new "Custom Tweening-tool". As a designer I am condemned to program because I want to build excellent performing fullscreen websites, with elements sometimes placed relative to screensize, contents relatively stacked over each other etc. Imagine if movie-editing and dvd-creation in Final Cut Studio or Adobe After Effects worked like Flash/Actionscript! (it would make me sick) I think it is possible to make a GUI that covers actionscript: What about an environment with elements connected to eachother with arrows/connectors that have their "while,if,then,else,for conditions in them". Most (logistic) business process simulation programs work that way. I understand the advantages of OOP; but why do I e.g. have to "import.flash.*" (i thought i was already in the application) and why do I have to create name-sensitive *.as --> package --> class-constructions...Aaaargh! From my point of view it is just not logical. So, what a nightmare it is to struggle through the O'Reilly's Essential AS3.0-book. Aftyer 350 pages you think: "Aha, now we're finaly gonna see how the magic work." The only thing you discover is that it takes pages of typing with minimal result showed via "trace". The big question has not been answered for me: How do I combine and where do I combine OOP, timeline scripting and Flash-authoring (designing) so I can make an excellent looking and performing webapplication? (excuses for bad english, i am dutch)

Usually I don't need to move a ball around, or attachMovie. I have to build simple interfaces. Five buttons, five frame labels. Divide up some animated content, make it accessible via buttons. The listener business and the additional code required by AS3 for the most common symbol I need to use -- simple, "click me" buttons -- has made AS3 seem, to me, all those things you have so elegantly argued against here.

Your examples are great. But it is the AS3 button scripting that has driven me back to AS2.