First of all it is a bad start to start a discussion with "I never used but...". Besides that you will find even more "click-together" features in big engines like CryEngine or UDK. And nevertheless they produce fantastic triple-A games. A click-together-editor approach is nothing bad when combined with a powerful scripting language and enough engine functionality exposed to that language. And if you dont want that, you can only get most freedom with full source code. Then you will be only happy with engines like Torque, C4, Irrlicht or Ogre3d.

By the way: I did not complain about A8 since it exists. I am only writing about my experience with different tools here. And I tried to concentrate on the good sides of them.