How can I live without vector paint?

Question

hey everyone
I use the vector paint plugin in AECS3 to create hand-drawn style line art animations.
I use vector paint applied to a solid together with my wacom cintiq to draw lines freehand. sometimes I use the 'animate strokes' setting within vector paint to make it look like the strokes are being drawn on.
there are some downsides to this plugin over the standard AE paint engine (principally that I cannot edit individual strokes, easily retime my strokes, or apply masks to my paint layer without precomping), but vector paint wins for me for 2 critical reasons:
1. I can paint directly in the comp window, meaning I can easily trace directly over another layer in my comp; and
2. Vector Paint has a built in wiggle engine which enables me to wiggle my paint strokes - this makes the images I draw feel dynamic and alive. it suits the simple hand drawn style of the animation.
as anyone who reads this forum will be aware, vector paint has been removed from CS5. I am needing to upgrade my creative suite but I need to be able to continue making this look for my clients.
my question to you all is how can I continue creating animations in this style with CS5?
Any feedback would be *most* appreciated!
cheers
dan
here are some examples of the kind of animation I am refferring to -some of these are WIPs so appear quite rough!

Answer 1

thanks Todd and Mylenium for your responses.
With regard to Myleniums first point:
1. I can paint directly in the comp window, meaning I can easily trace directly over another layer in my comp
You can do that with normal paint just the same by painting on solids on top and setting the brush to paint on transparent and layer and comp windows side by side. You can even get that functionality in the layer window by adding effects like CC Composite before the paint to enforce rendering of the current frame.
I have tried this setup with layer and comp windows next to each other but the result is that I still have to draw my strokes in the layer window (which is transparent, so appears empty). Once I have drawn a stroke it appears in the comp window. So I was unable to use this workflow to trace over an existing layer in my comp. Can you expand on the use of CC composite in this way?  I tried adding this effect and playing with the settings but couldn't find a way to use it in this context.
Also, with regard to point 2 (and Todd's helpful link):
Occassionally also consider shape layers - there's a Wiggle Path modifier there, after all. 
I have tried working with the wiggle path option in here but the results are totally different to the wiggles produced using vector paint - I'm guessing its a different algorithm or something? the variables are quite different in either package.
Can anyone here point me to a 3rd party plugin that does the same thing as vector paint? Mylenium suggested video gogh but this plugin is more about making video layers resemble brushstrokes. I am simply wanting to draw brush strokes directly into the after effects comp window and animate them, and to be able to apply some kind of wiggle modifier to create a degree of organic 'dynamicness'.
Mylenium also says:
Yes, it's been much lamented but it's not coming back - for a while, anyway.
When you say 'for a while', do you mean CS 6? CS7? I am starting to feel like my options are to sit tight with AECS3 until the situation changes, or to move away from AE altogether and work with different software to acheive this look (flash? toon boom? any suggestions?). If I had some confidence that a new improved tool featuring the same functionality as vector paint was going to be introduced in the next version of AE I would feel much better about working around it for the time being.
... yes I have filed a feature request! Please If you find this post in your own search about vector paint, can you also file a request? Vector paint had its downsides, but it is pretty clear to me that taking it away has reduced after effect's functionality in this area, which is a profound shame. I have won awards for projects that have been built around vector paint material, but I now cannot keep my AE version current without losing the ability to produce this look. thats a total bummer!
dan