I wouldn't count out Composite until you actually try it. I had to do a motion graphics piece last year. I started it and moved it from Combustion to the Composite beta. It provided tools I needed to process multiple layers at one time (using merge and extract stream and placing nodes in between). Then I was able to have control over effects like ripple to handle filtering (Combustion just results in aliasing). Options to handle combining layers and how alpha is handled (no more alpha inflation when combining layers that have overlapping alphas), etc. Stick in a 2D Transform and some motion blur nodes before the Blend and Comp and everything is great. Plus it rendered at about 6 sec a frame for 1080p resolution.

The workflow is definitely different. For example, instead of using a single Composite operator you combine 2 nodes at a time in a blend and comp and build it out that way.

To tell you the truth it was a pleasant experience, than I have had on other projects that had to be done in Combustion. It does lack some tools (audio, edit op, particles, text, movie format IO, etc), but overall the tools that are the same are much more advanced.

Just my 2 cents on actually using it over Combustion in production,
-Eric