As rule, in any creative process, once you've signed off on a project, leave it alone! It may be flawed and imperfect in many ways, but if you've taken it to the point where you feel you can say "that's done, it's finished!" then that's where you should stop.
Constantly refining various elements will absorb a huge amount of time for very little gain; a version 2 will prompt the making of version 3, then 4, maybe 5 ... Years later, you'll look back at what you've achieved, and it'll amount to ... one short video instead of five different works, each one incorporating the lessons learnt during the last.
Although the theme/genre of the video does nothing for me, I think the gritty look and sound of your original is far superiour to Nate's example, so I wouldn't be in any rush to "up your game" too much. Sorry Nate.
No need to apologize, I pretty much agree with you.
But there is more than one metric at play here. You're looking at a two month film versus a two hour film. The two month film is handcrafted and I agree, better. However, the point you made is exactly why I make these suggestions. With each new product, whether a success or a failure, we gain experience. Earlier in a career, for example when you are making short films and trying out new concepts, this iterative process is at its most crucial. The ability to work through creative concepts and gain experience at dozens of times the normal speed seems valuable to me.
My first motorcycle was tiny, 250cc. The Styrofoam Cup of motorcycles. But gas was extremely cheap for such a small engine, and I got 1000 hours of riding experience For under a grand. Later on, I got a Ducati, but I'm really glad that I'd managed to rack up so much experience first without breaking the bank. I'd have gotten killed out there without that experience.
The other side is funding and ROI. In some parts of the world including mine and most likely his, The funding and opportunities required to create a situation where years of meticulous handcrafted work are possible or rewarded, may never come.
I did not say my version was better and I don't think it is, However it was drastically faster and cheaper. it's not the highest quality option, but it is an option, And dependent on an individual's situation or goals, high speed and low quality might trump high quality and low speed in some cases. Universally, having options is a good thing, It's not like you have to use them when they don't fit your situation or desired outcome.
In my particular instance, high-speed high-efficiency is essentially the only option to reach my particular goal, which involves tremendous length with low resources and punitive reward structures (I'm likely to get paid .007 cents on the dollar compared to my industry counterparts with similar viewership). While I'm capable of much higher quality production it simply doesn't make sense from an ROI perspective, so I share my knowledge of these toolkits with people who I think might benefit from having additional options.
Lastly, he and I both talked a bit about hybriding. Have you considered that he might want to use these tools for some other purpose besides actually making his final film? Perhaps every second should be handcrafted. You'll need time for that. These tools could be used for storyboarding, or to create placeholder segments that could help you develop a top down view of how sections of the film affect the pacing. You could do everything you were capable of manually then use the new tools to supplement in areas that were beyond your financial reach. All of these things save time or money, and that time or money could be invested in the final product, Improving it significantly even though not a single frame of the finished product was produced using these options.
In short I'm not suggesting that this guy replace His set of zeiss primes with an iphone, I'm just noting that there are absolutely circumstances Where having an extra option available could be beneficial.
