I really like the use of undulation speed and flow speed. A lot of their filters are self-animating which is good. Plus the fire and smoke filters are really cool even if they are not hyper realistic. If you need a different type of distress look with a rad self animating alogorithm , or just another self animating distortion filter you can t beat jiggle. There is a lot of power in that filter alone.
Squint is also a very cool derivative of a blur filter.
So there is really nothing to lose and no purchase is necessary. Xenofx for ae would rock. Now I am in no way connected with alienskin, except that I own some of there products. I have to say, if they implemented half of these wonderful filters the ae community would get a terrific new set of tools. A lot of these filters are nice derivatives of existing sets.