Flex and Flash are two different things. Flash is a designer-friendly tool, while flex is more programmer-oriented. From what you describe, it looks like you've been doing more coding with the platform than designing.
Dude, you serious? I can build you something similar in just 5 mins with 0 lines of code with easier maintainability and no calls to external CSS or Code.
>which was never really a fun workflow
I am surprised, because it was one of the most powerful features of flash, just like layers were for Photoshop. Maybe it's a personal opinion, but I loved this workflow personally.
So I think you and I are more or less in agreement: to make an animated globe, Flash may require less lines of code for the average developer.
But what I argue is that this D3 implementation, because of its code structure, is easier to build upon with even more data and interactivity. I would bet that whatever it takes you to build in 5 minutes with 0 lines of code, will take up many, many multiple times of work to do even trivial changes. Sure, you'd win in the scenario in which only a simple animated globe is called for, but I don't think that's what most of the OP's audience cars about.
And I wonder if you can even claim to do what you want in such a short time...for the simple matter that doing is in the Flash designer environment requires a lot of point and click (for 180+ MovieClips).
Ok, for 180+ Movie clips, I agree with you :D Btw, you are the author of the bastards book for photography? Wow. I loved your work :) I'll shoot you an email sometime :)
Dude, you serious? I can build you something similar in just 5 mins with 0 lines of code with easier maintainability and no calls to external CSS or Code.
>which was never really a fun workflow
I am surprised, because it was one of the most powerful features of flash, just like layers were for Photoshop. Maybe it's a personal opinion, but I loved this workflow personally.