I just finished a really thick book "Essential ActionScript 3.0". It's a good book of course. I would say ActionScript 3 is much more powerful than I thought before.
I used to consider ActionScript is just an embeded internal script powered by an interpretor or something, inside its application. No, it is beyond my former prejudice.
AS3 is a complete OO language and now runs on AVM - just like JVM/CLR, and this is why Flex is so popular. I really admire Adobe's technical foresight and his profound technical strength.