Now that I've read the OP, this seems excessive...
My friends seem to like
Flash a lot (see orfeu too), but you have to accept vector based drawing, which feels weird and the best looking footage seems to be doing shape fills for now. A couple others are
tvpaint loyalists. It's better for a traditional animation look, contour line drawing. Haven't tried or seen too much toon boom, but what really matters is you making the program work. They'll all have their challenges.
Pencil on paper is the same way though, the challenge there is more steps to making a finished look - and kind of a guessing job as to what the final look may be until it's entirely composited, where Flash has it all there on the screen for you. Also, it's very difficult to do pencil on paper without a pencil test machine, but I think it's still the smoothest, best-looking animation. I'm kind of digging the flash animation without outlines though, and some other things people are doing with the program.
Futureman said:
Um, I need advice on DRAWING software for my Bamboo Pen I just purchased.
I have Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Photoshop CS5. Which should I be using?
I'm pretty confortable with Photoshop, but have never even opened Illustrator.
Haven't used CS5 before, but everyone uses Photoshop to draw for fun these days. No one uses Illustrator really, unless you were making company logos and such. There's a learning curve, but PS is a great program for drawing.