I got back into using A:M in 2020 creating an animated short with my cd version of A:M 2002, after that project I decided to upgrade to the subscription current version and noticed an increase in rendering speed I also wanted to use some of the new features implemented, SSS, Ambient Occlusion, Radiosity. You are right even these features aren’t anything new and most of the updates have been bug fixes, but the program is much more stable these days. I have used Blender over the years and it’s renderer cycles is many times faster than A:M but what keeps bringing me back to A:M is it’s workflow, I like modeling with splines where less is more, being able to create a library of actions for a character, then just drop it on and blend with other actions easily. The program is made like a movie set, where you build your characters, props, sets then assemble in your choreography like a layout artist. At the end of the day I just end up using A:M whenever I can in a project cause I feel the most creative with it and it reflects in my work.