Something to consider is the fact that Anime Studio isn't really a drawing program as much as it's a modeling program. When I first migrated to this program from Flash, I was astonished by how similar is was to 3D programs like Blender and Maya as opposed to typical 2d drawing programs like Flash and ToonBoom. This is a fact that often polarizes people and causes a lot of frame-by-frame animators to make a huge fuss about it (often on the forums). Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Anime Studio and I can't recommend it enough, but the learning curve can be tough and frustrating for some so it'll take patience to get everyone used to it.
I'd suggest letting the animators toy with a copy of the program first and going over some of the material in the programs various webinars.
Now I'll answer what questions I can:
3: Anime Studio supports things like color blend modes, masking, lighting and basic blurs but nothing too fancy. A lot of people prefer to save their composition to png sequences and then composite their animation in another program. For example, Anime Studio doesn't support real motion blur which is something I take care of in another program. I also prefer to do color correction and everything else in other programs as they're more efficient at it than Anime Studio.
4: I've had terrible luck with rendering video with Anime Studio. Dropped frames, some artifacts and sound synchronization always seem to plague my projects. These days, I always render png sequences and then actually render my work to a video format in another program (usually Blender).
6: The pipeline that I prefer to utilize goes like this:
--Concept Artists create turnarounds, expression sheets, hand poses and backgrounds.
--Rigging team uses concept art to model the characters in Anime Studio. They rig bones and actions in preparation for animation. Unlike characters, Backgrounds should usually be loaded directly as rasters with minimal rigging. This maximizes time as it balances workload between the rigging team and traditional art team. Depending on the scene and how often the background is to be used, you want to make sure you're careful with shading. For example, a scene that is used very often and in various lighting conditions should have it's shading done within Anime Studio so that it's more versatile. On the other hand, one shots can be shaded within the raster to save time and processing power.
--Animators assemble scenes from rigs and background assets according to the storyboard scene they've been given. Use the library and a server to ensure version control.
--Animation Lead checks results to ensure quality control
--Animations are exported to png sequences and then brought into After Effects for post processing. This is where sound, color correction and the majority of special effects are applied.
--Animation is checked one last time before distribution.
If this workflow sounds like something that would fit in nicely with your team, then I'd suggest giving Anime Studio serious consideration. Just be prepared for the biggest complaint from your animators is that Anime Studio doesn't have good drawing tools. If you setup concept and rigging teams well, these little complaints should subside.
