I am working through some of the Director MX lessons in this "training from the source" manual.

It's funny -- I was first attracted to Flash because it was less complex than Director.
Now, Flash has become so complex that I am getting the feeling Director might be less complex, more straight-forward to use. Flash still has the considerable advantage of smaller file size, though. Another point is that Director used to be MUCH more expensive than Flash, but the two are now closer in price.