Motion Graphics Blurdom and More

I've recently noticed a very strange trend in the VFX industry to use exquisite motion blur tactics through Adobe Photoshop. I am not the most savvy when it comes to motion blur in Maya or 3DS Max, but I have had some experience twinking it in Poser, Apple Motion, and especially Adobe After Effects. I've wondered why composition programs, like the internal software that companies like Sony Pictures Imageworks uses, are not more prominent in the small business realm. Is it because their costs are so inexplicably high?

The image I've uploaded here is a screen capture of a frame from the latest JibJab production called What We Call the News. When I first saw the video in its entirety, I was staring over the shoulder of our CCO, whom had finally completed the finishing touches on the video. This screen capture is from the ending and as soon as I saw that glorious 30 FPS motion blur that Evan slipped in there, I laughed manically. I said, "Oh my crap, that looks so cool. How did you do that?" His simple response was Photoshop. The trend of using Photoshop instead of a professional motion graphics composition software seems to have risen drastically over a short period of time. Somehow, people creating viral videos and other short pieces are willing to spend their time editing each frame on their own, rather than letting a computer program that can hanle millions of calculations per second do it on its own.

My assumption is that the trend has spawned from a sort of revolution that is not too disimilar from the still-recent, sporadic move away from analogue. There are still those artists out there whom refuse to embrace the digital realm of graphics and imaging, but most (esp. photographers, sketch artists, drawers, and storyboard artists) have accepted that their fate is to move with the rest of the world. Is this going to be a problem in the digital realm of visual effects as well? Some people still prefer frame-by-frame manipulation, rather than creating schemes and schisms that will apply their will to the art form for them. My hope is that they will embrace the vast and rapidly expanding realm of motion graphics before it is too late and they return to their dark rooms, hissing at any light that is not red.