try to animate type on a curve and see if shake is still faster than a discreet box.
I have a great fondness for shake (having actually used it rather than just seeing a demo) and there is no way you can begin to compare it to flame or inferno by just benchmarking render times.
shake's is a tool designed for a the needs of film effects work, and it's node based compositing style does require a solid technical background to understand how the software builds a compositing tree.
as a compositing station with no clients in the room, shake is great. but it also lacks the tools for motion graphic design (better off with after effects) no video I/O, and speed is horribly slower on a mac as compared to a pc.
FYI, the only render farm support for shake (right now) is through 3rd party software.
if you are interested in shake, checkout the forums and mailing list archive at
http://www.highend2d.com and get yourself a copy of "The Art and Science of Digital Compositing" by Ron Brinkmann
brian willard
-radar studios-
radarstudios.com
