Coping with current Project: To continue, or not...

Well any mapmaker has had this problem at one time or another...but it just seems like a mental battle when it comes to pulling through to complete a map you are working on, or to just ditch it and move on with a new one, or none at all...

The reasons can be loss of interest, another map currently being made that parallels yours in storyline elements and such, a better idea for a map, or just problems you run into when mapping that you just can't seem to avoid or compensate for.

1) The point here is that I find the ability editor completely useless for making REALLY creative custom spells. I decided not to implement the use of 3rd party programs with the great WE released in FT, but it seems I now have to resort to such methods. I was trying to make a sort of Curse spell like Amplify from D2(with much failure), but the target art, area of affect, even clicking on the ability to cast seems to not work as edited with the Ability Editor. Sure I can try trigger-enhancing it, but I still have a shred of hope that the ability editor is just bugged up or it just sucks, or maybe yet, I might not understand the essential functions of the Ability Editor that could make such a skill possible.
2) I was also considering using the Import Manager as an alternative to MPQ2K in terms of adding custom func and strings files, is that possible?

If it turns out that I have to resort to editing such func/ability/slk files I might just drop my current project because the Ability Editor just sucks at the moment.

Hold on to your project because a new patch might come out fixing some spell editing problems or allowing more acess.