Any reason not to switch from SE to AE?

[Someone92]

There are several threads about LE vs SE, but I haven't seen on SE vs AE.

 

I somehow nuked my Skyrim install, so I am pondering to update my Skyrim to the 1.6.640 before I re-install my mods.

With DAR now working with AE, is there any reason to stay on SE?

[spoonsinger]

Speaking from a 'portable', Non Sexlab Legacy Of Dragonborn GOG build, Party Combat Parameters not available on 1.6.640 or  1.6.659. GlowBeGone, (although you can do that with an esp solution), not available & .NetFramework not available, (CrashLogger is a fairly good alternative for logging crash reason if that is why you were using .Netframework). Can't off the top of my head think of anything else I'm missing. (So if it is missing, probably wasn't that important to me). 

[27X]

AE is trash

[Just Don't]

Morphs don't apply in real time in 1.6+ versions. I don't remember the exact details, it has something to do with changes in Racemenu or how Engine Fixes works applying the memory manager patch. But in practice: on a 1.5.97 game with 2.0.20 SKSE and compatible mods you can get morphs in real time (stuff like mods increasing a slider, editing your character in racemenu mid playthrough or changing body preset if you're using Autobody or OBody). On 1.6+ and corresponding SKSE and mods you can't, it sometimes stops working and changes aren't updated until you reload the game or close and start it again.

I don't remember if there's any other known issue.

 

That being said, pretty much everything available for 1.5.97 is available for 1.6.640, save 5-6 exceptions. And the same is true the other way around, almost everything that has been released after 1.6+ that is made for 1.6.640 has also been released for 1.5.97 or there's a backport of it.

On top of that you can run any amount of CC content in whatever executable version you want, so you can mix CC stuff with 1.5.97, or keep a 1.6.640 exe and strip all the additional CC stuff from your game. It just takes a bit more of reading and knowing what you're doing. So which version you keep and mod depends a lot on what you want to use and how much you know about the game/mods and its changes between versions.