dhoward,
My two cents worth is that AutoCAD LT is all the drafting software any structural shop needs...unless the clients or other consultants require that a specific product be used. Presenting a structural engineering solution usually requires good old fashioned, highly detailed, project-specific drafting. We usually do the drafting now with computers, but it is still drafting. Other than a few specialized situations, such as, perhaps, a company that specializes in designing foundations for metal buildings, the solution must be customized and it is simply too complex to be produced with just a few punches of buttons.
I remember when Ram Steel came out and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I am still amazed by it. But, the first time we used it we thought it would model, design, and draft a building with a few punches of buttons. It only took that first project -- a rather simply, one-story warehouse addition -- to disabuse us of that notion. Even that simple building had too many things going on to be able to be designed by a semi-automated process.
I understand that X-Steel has proven to be of great value to steel detailers but I've also heard that early versions of it caused problems. In any case, from my observation any attempt to automate structural drafting falls short. I even believe that for most structural work nothing will ever be more simultaneously effective and efficient than two-dimensional custom drafted solutions because they are crafted by human brains and thought must be put into their creation. And while perhaps counter-intuitive, the two-dimensional aspect of it proves to be a net benefit, because it forces the solution to be efficient and elegant, that is, it must convey the most amount of information in the least amount of space. And the best examples of this are clean drawings that convey the maximum amount of information possible with the least amount of lines and clutter...sort of the opposite of the way this post was written, come to think of it. But it brings to mind a statement (probably apocryphally) attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who wrote, "If I had more time I'd have written you a shorter letter."