I see my name has been invoked. 
There are some misconceptions in the OP's understanding of Chief Architect. It certainly isn't BIM to the extent that ArchiCAD is, but the last couple of releases have made significant progress. Schedules are certainly "live." (e.g. Add a door, and the door schedule updates instantly.) However, they are not bi-directional like ArchiCAD. (i.e. You can't edit the schedule and have the object update.) Generally, there is no reason to explode the sections and elevations; if they aren't right, it is because you haven't modeled them correctly. But you certainly have the option to add 2D elements, like fill patterns, lines, or text, on top of these sections/elevations. Regarding BIM, you can generally add a field type (say, door hardware function) to many element types and have it scheduled. These elements certainly can be selected and edited from a 3D view. "Auto-labels" are kind of there, but you need to use embedded macros, the use of which is not intuitive or explicitly demonstrated. If you had an example of what you are trying to label, I could opine on that. For calculating quantities, a normal materials list is very easy to extract from Chief; not so easy from AC.
In a nutshell, if you are a one-person office trying to get condocs out the door quickly for pretty mainstream residential projects, I suspect you will be happier with Chief Architect. Also, if you are doing lots of interior elements with cabinets and furniture, Chief is going to be a better fit since it has more extensive residential libraries. It also has better framing tools if you are showing much structural, like framing plans.
If you are doing extremely detailed residential work, like Victorians or very contemporary designs, remodelings where showing new vs. existing is important (with AC's renovation filters), projects with large amounts of polygon faces, have very finicky requirements with tricky terrains, unusual walls (canted/sloped/trapezoidal) and/or highly detailed condocs, then AC will be better, but you pay a price in the overall speed of producing those docs.
There are some misconceptions in the OP's understanding of Chief Architect. It certainly isn't BIM to the extent that ArchiCAD is, but the last couple of releases have made significant progress. Schedules are certainly "live." (e.g. Add a door, and the door schedule updates instantly.) However, they are not bi-directional like ArchiCAD. (i.e. You can't edit the schedule and have the object update.) Generally, there is no reason to explode the sections and elevations; if they aren't right, it is because you haven't modeled them correctly. But you certainly have the option to add 2D elements, like fill patterns, lines, or text, on top of these sections/elevations. Regarding BIM, you can generally add a field type (say, door hardware function) to many element types and have it scheduled. These elements certainly can be selected and edited from a 3D view. "Auto-labels" are kind of there, but you need to use embedded macros, the use of which is not intuitive or explicitly demonstrated. If you had an example of what you are trying to label, I could opine on that. For calculating quantities, a normal materials list is very easy to extract from Chief; not so easy from AC.In a nutshell, if you are a one-person office trying to get condocs out the door quickly for pretty mainstream residential projects, I suspect you will be happier with Chief Architect. Also, if you are doing lots of interior elements with cabinets and furniture, Chief is going to be a better fit since it has more extensive residential libraries. It also has better framing tools if you are showing much structural, like framing plans.
If you are doing extremely detailed residential work, like Victorians or very contemporary designs, remodelings where showing new vs. existing is important (with AC's renovation filters), projects with large amounts of polygon faces, have very finicky requirements with tricky terrains, unusual walls (canted/sloped/trapezoidal) and/or highly detailed condocs, then AC will be better, but you pay a price in the overall speed of producing those docs.
RM is spot on with his comments. And yes it can be a steep learning curve in AC. You will have to review the level of complexity of design that you will be working on and the style of residential buildings. To me the learning curve didn’t bother me much as I am in the low rise residential field. Knowing where you are located can have quite an effect as RM says with internal modeling and with library elements. Have fun choosing.
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