Here is the plot twist nobody wrote: automating the in-betweens did not kill hand animation. It concentrated it. Animators spend less time on mechanics and more on the poses that carry a performance.

The pose is the performance

When the tedious middle is cheap, the expensive, human part — the key poses, the timing, the acting choice — gets more attention, not less. Directors are asking for more takes, more nuance, more of the animator.

pose test — three reads of one beat01
frame 01 / 12
Step through the blocking frame by frame. Three acting choices for the same line, blocked in an afternoon.

Automate the tween and you do not lose the animator. You free them to animate.

I have watched veterans light up rediscovering this. The craft did not shrink. It moved back toward the part that was always the point.