I'm just going to say that "better" is a relative term and as all relative things it’s impossible to be definitive.
I've been using ace for over a year now and it makes my life easier. I enjoy coding with it more than I did when I tried to code stand alone mods.
And as the head of the ace project, I hate that we have become viewed as elitist and snobby. Only about half of the addons I use are ace'd
Ace, in its current form, has strengths and weaknesses. I hope that many of those weaknesses will be addressed in the next major version of ace (Ace2). I normally stay out of posts like this because I do not want to be misunderstood.
/sigh
I just hope that as a community we can overall work together and help one another be better coders regardless of whether an individual uses ace or not.