I do agree, the lack of FPP and RC is the big one, but I’m looking long term, if I start learning now, it gets the wheels in motion such that further down the line there may well be solutions for which I’ll be experienced and ready enough by then. If I keep putting off learning other software, AD will continue to have me by the jaffas.
I spent my Sunday going through the 2.80 videos, they’re short and sweet - here’s the link for the playlist;
Most of the time I learn by trial and error but here it seems I might have to look at some tutorials to understand the basic concepts. Thanks I’ll try and find some spare time 
It’s real that something like ForestPro (and RailClone) is missing at the moment in Blender.
The real hope for this kind of procedural modelling (or better “populating”) is the development of the “everything nodes” project. It should transform Blender in something near Houdini (if I’ve understood right). Until this it will become real, the other solution is this addon Sorcar - Procedural modeling in Blender using Node Editor - #255 by dimitarsp - Released Scripts and Themes - Blender Artists Community
I’ve never tried it yet, but it seems interesting.
Sounds cool, mind posting a link to the site where I can buy that from?
Thanks Jez
I am also just starting to re-try blender. It is definitely one of those packages that you cant just jump in and be up and running straight away. It seems every time I tried that I would break it in seconds :(. After watching a few beginner tuts and now starting on some intermediate ones from BlenderGuru I am starting the understand its logic or sometime lack of. Interestingly I am seeing a lot of similarity to Lightwave and Modo workflows and tools.