When we started the running shoe illustrations the colors were not finalized from the manufacturer so we needed to keep flexibility in mind. Let's say both the suede and the Nylon were white when we started. If we had used a color called white for all the elements of the suede and nylon throughout, it would have been a nightmare to make changes later if the manufacturer decided to use blue suede and green nylon or whatever. By creating sets of colors right from the beginning based on their function, we have complete control of the illustration and can change any element at will. Another reason we use FreeHand over Illustrator has to do with a greatly underestimated and misunderstood feature of FreeHand.
Illustrators paint style is simply a way to change selected elements only.
This is OK if the illustration is simple enough to select any element you desire to change, but most of our illustrations are too complex. With an illustration of the complexity of these running shoes we have thousands of individual elements. If we decide to change the line weight or dash density of all the stitching on all our shoe illustrations we can simply do it with one command and it flows through the entire set. If we have different styles of stitching such as suede stitching and nylon stitching all based on a single stitching style, we can change the line weight or stitch spacing of all the related styles by simply changing the base style. True styles have been used for a long time in word processing programs but are generally misunderstood in drawing programs.