AutoCAD is good for 2D drafting for the casual user. That's about it. When I learned CAD in college, we learned on AutoCAD 11, and solid modeling was stupid. Not a bad program to put on a PC for an engineer in a plant who uses CAD occasionlly, but the serious drafters generally won't touch it. My old school started using I-DEAS to teach after I had the class (I think that's the acronym) and it was super cool. IIRC, Ford used Pro-Engineer for their product designs. Our facilities engineers did use AutoCAD for the plant layout (2D).
