Used subtly in the right places for a brief period they're all very useful no doubt.
Howvere you haven't really answered the question. What do you want to apply them to and/or use them to achieve?
What is your typical project?


For example I "edit" many hours of kiddie football. I can't see any need for any of that in hour after hour of kids kicking a ball. I can see a use for it in opening titles and DVD menus or a Best Of short video of the same thing.

On the other hand for a feature length narrative drama one might grade all of it through AE using Color Finesse.

Keep in mind that all those 3rd party plugs that you provided links to can be done in AE out of the box. Also keep in mind that none of them are easy to master. What you see in those videos may have taken a master of the craft hours if not days to get looking that good. If you're making big budget TVCs then it's obviously worth the effort but do not expect clients with that kind of money to fall into your lap just because you own a shite load of plugins.

Bob

The majority of my videos are captures and edits of in-game footage from video games I play. Because the games are action-oriented, special effects that ooh and aah will help. But I also will be learning Video Editing for other needs, whatever the case may arise.

Most of my stuff is 10 minutes or less.

I'm surprised to hear that AE can do this all out of the box without any plugins. Believe you me, I'm a person who understands that Adobe's software is cutting edge and the "standard" because they make professional level tools.

To that effect, I'm rather adept at Dreamweaver (can build CodlFusion based XHTML/CSS compliant data base driven sites with it), Photoshop (can create what I'd consider "Advanced" photo composites and understand the principles behind them) and Flash (able to utilize both the design end and the programmatic Actionscript development backend to create engaging interactive media)

So After Effects would be next on my chopping block. I love Adobe software, and I understand this is not an Adobe forum, but I'm glad to get the input you guys are offering. If I can save money on not buying 3rd party plugins that AE can accomplish on it's own, the better.

But at the same time I'm willing to buy good Plugins. Thing is, Red Giant charges $200 for the 3D Strokes. TBH, I think a tool like that should be $50. $200 is just ridiculously overpriced IMO.

Also, I'm a freelance Web Developer / Graphic Artist on the side. AE is another tool I can have under my belt to expand my services to my clients. I don't mess with clients who don't want to spend at least $1000. And my average client nets me $3000, so I know my stuff.

I make em pick 2 of the 3. A quick design time, a cheap price and/or quality product. They can pick any 2 but CANNOT have the 3rd. When everyone picks Cheap and Quality, I say "Sure, but I'll get the product done in 6 months" (Quick), and that gets them to re-evaluate.

They just released an update to both AE CS4 and Premiere CS4, they are now a fully 64-bit programs. Premiere can also now open FCP and Avid projects. More info here:

http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=51655