Eric, there are
certain types of jobs where SA will smoke the plugs, in efficiency and speed. When you have a good handle on graph editor, texturing and doing everything with nodes, you can zoom thru crap that would take way longer in LW or other plugs.
A really good example is if you needed to render a bunch of different versions of the same product, in different colors etc and with different lighting using multiple HDRs. In SA, everything is either right in front of you or at your fingertips. And being able to lay out tons of material nodes (etc) and plug them in as needed is huge.. It is a very, very well made and efficient/speedy interface, imho.
Edit: Oh yeah - add some LUA automation, and you are now making money, whilst taking a nap in your hammock... I haven't done this yet, but you bet your ass I will.