One more thing... I started with Autopipe on a "386 with math co-processor" computer, when Caesar "experienced" stress guy was a kind of mystic between engineers and his support to the team was rather Zen words. Mentoring someone with "it gives me red, must change something" is not the best one can do, isn't it?
Autopipe was and still is a powerful competitor of Caesar.
No doubt, Caesar has some great improvements over Autopipe like C-Node and no doubt Autopipe gives you more freedom to be creative instead to be focused on handling Caesar, as for example solving non-convergences closing "intelligently" supports' gaps.
But both of them are old generation, I do not speculate here about their future.

What the real engine of Caesar success was?
Just this forum and the amazing information given here. That really imposed Caesar as a standard in piping stress analysis.

In fact that's why I've tried to participate here avoiding to post about specific issues in Caesar, which today are -maybe- a real pain and tomorrow are forgotten.
I've learnt here a lot about stress. I gave back a little.
Thank you for this opportunity!