Blender’s 2.5D toolset

[schwarzgrau]

It seems you're not impressed, since this is nothing new to you.
Sure you can put some 2D animation on 3D planes in some 3D- or compositing-package. That's not new, even the ability to draw inside of this scene isn't completely new, but how they combined this available tools is something new and that you're able to do everything nearly at the same time, which could generate interesting workflows, that's also something new I guess.

[Gochris1]

Yes you are right. It is new to the Blender community. So I am happy for them.

A few months ago a friend of mine who uses After Effects sent a link to a video. The video showed a new development for After Effects - not only could you composite, but now you
paint from within After Effects!

I just had to smile, since I have been both compositing and painting within TV Paint for years now!

And I am still happy with TV Paint...

[schwarzgrau]

You mean Paint & Stick? It's a great idea to let people animate in their compositing software, but it lags too much to really animate with it.