I think your take fails to take into account how AE got more and more broken over time as a storytelling tool.
I was all over it for telling stories when it came out back in the day live and had to move on when the damage began to accumulate and was left unrepaired. The only example I can recall right now is the mechanic for dialogue: you walk onto a map and when you got close to some foes, or NPCs (or both), they'd spout whatever lines you put in for them. Both then and now, they spout it as soon as you walk onto a map. Sure, you could cut lines from a story, adjust in one way or another, but this was close to a third of your material that an author can get into the story/game, and certainly broke every story I'd already sunk hours into. I mean, my stuff might not be good, but try cutting out a third of any movie, TV show episode and see what you get.
The only thing it still works well for is farming, far as I can tell. Until this is addressed, I don't foresee myself getting back into the AE system,