Here's my take on how much I use these commands....
 
> The commands I used most were:
> 
> keys pressed
Frequently...  

> set cursor to
Sometimes...

> play sound
Rarely...
 
> No one has replaced these yet.
> 
> Many people loved these screen commands:
> 
> screen list
> set screens to
Never...

> 
> Some fellow wrote a unix tool called cscreen, but stopped supporting it.
> 
> My file commands avoided the Finder and had no UI:

> deleteFile
> renameFile
> moveFile
> copyFile

Most valuable in OS7-9, but I still prefer them to the finder and system
events.
 
> These are in the system these days but were written before the Finder was
> scriptable:
> 
> sound volume
> set sound volume to
> machine environment
Never

> the clipboard
> set the clipboard to
Standard additions works fine for this

> 
> Other miscellaneous weird commands:
> 
> the ticks -- for timers

All the time, less overhead than the shell, so it's more accurate. However,
if it were built into applescript so there were no overhead at all, it would
be even more accurate.

> walk folders -- a cool file iterator I used a lot

Never (sorry, Jon, I tried, but pure applescript seemed simpler)
> AE user interaction level -- a way to avoid dialogs sometimes
Never, couldn't make it work where I wanted to

We do need a way to suspend all user interaction too.

> choose color -- because I could
Never

> snag object -- a developer's tool to store an AS object specifier
Never

> fileIsBusy -- Leonard made me add this one ;)
Frequently

 > Plus the coercions that people both loved and hated:
 
> string to file specification -- 'TEXT' to 'fss '
> styled text to file specification -- 'STXT' to 'fss '
> international text to file specification -- 'itxt' to 'fss '

Frequently


> script to anything -- 'scpt' to '****'
never

ES