Hi Matt,
> [...] why they wanted to re-invent the wheel with a lot of the stuff.
Personally for me the reason is simple and corresponds to my personal experience:
-- It is perfectly fine to use specifics of the selected script language but only when you work for the same employer and with the same project; but
-- If you already have a reasonable test code base and need to create test code using different script languages (e.g. when providing consultancy services) it is more convenient to use TestComplete's built-in functions. This is more convenient just because in this case if you need to port some code to another script language, the only thing that you need to do is to adjust the syntax (add/remove semicolons, replace 'return' with the name of the function, etc.). This can be done really quickly and you don't need to change anything in the test code itself. Whereas if the original test code uses some language peculiarities, you will need to implement this using the means of the language you are porting the code to. This will require time and this time loss may be eliminated by trying to use the built-in functions as much as possible.
