I have been thinking a lot recently about whether people just being introduced to animation should use simple or advanced programs to learn the basics (most specifically pivot and flash). For simplicity's sake, and to focus on the actual animating part, lets remove the factor of cost as well as losing interest. Could there be some advantage to starting off simple, or is it just best to begin using the tools that allow for your animations to have more potential as early as possible? Do you think that learning basic principals is best without the many distractions of flash? If so, at what point are you good enough to move on?
I personally believe that it is much easier the correctly learn poses and spacing on pivot that on flash. I might even go so far as to say that the simple program helps to lay a solid foundation that could possibly put you ahead of other flash users. The reason for this is that pivot helps to eliminate some of the annoying distractions, like stick construction and re-sizing, that make what is more important hard to learn in flash. With pivot you can learn easing, flow, physics, etc. that can later be used in more complex softwares. As for the point at which someone is ready to move on, I believe that they should be at least a low intermediate on DD, as that is around where most of the important principals have been learned.