It's a much more in-depth process to get set up for sure, but it feels like now that I have it rigged it's so much easier to add new animations, tweak existing ones, and especially go back and add details to the base sprites. With frame-by-frame if I wanted to add something like a panel on my character's space suit, I'd have to add it to every frame on every animation. But with this, I can just add it to the single reference image, and boom! It's in every animation in the game just like that.
You're definitely right though, the style is extremely different than frame-by-frame. I guess it's just a matter of what kind of feel you're aiming for with your game!
I'll admit I prefer to play games with nostalgic pixel art, I grew up with the likes of Mario on the SNES, but making it is a lot of work to get it right, and as you say, making changes afterwards can be very time consuming.
I think I'll try the bone approach in a future game, just to see how it works and see if I like the result.
