This white paper, What About Flash? Can We Really Make Games With It? is a great read if you're in the business of developing "casual games" or online games and you've pondered the value of Flash in your life. I've been really strongly researching alternatives to using Flash and Director/Shockwave for online games. I just don't like how confining they are with regards to making other bigger games that I want to work on.

I've done a fair amount of work with the Torque game engine by Garage Games, which is very good. It's much more complex than Flash, but that might be just what you need, eh? There are other options too, but give this article a peruse if you're finding any of this topic interesting.