Most of the Z-brackets I've done connected two members in a with contact on opposite faces of the bracket, sometimes in cases where faces were not quite parallel. This geometry was far easier to design and control with conventional features. Doubly so if you are working in-context. A better example ...

So much of this "future" stuff has been lurking under the hood n NX for decades. Direct modeling? Did it in the 90s. Sub-D? They call it facet modeling. Sub-D is becoming a bigger deal as wearables put more demands on CAD for stretchability. Also any capability that aids in processing anat...

Don't be afraid to start outside of typical sheet-metal modelling. Some shapes work much better in "normal" modelling and converted at a later point. Z-bend brackets are a good example. Also anything complex that would be better with a layout sketch.

I go where there's work and money. Onshape and Inventor clients haven't been knocking down the door the way SolidWorks and NX clients have.

No cream in my coffee.
No soda in my whiskey.
No automatic dimensions in my sketches.

I know what I want. It's faster to add it they way I want from nothing than to undo all the poor decisions the auto-solver makes. (Not NX-specific.)

They serve different customers, but they have one master!

After nearly two decades in SW, I'm back in NX. I just helped a SW client out with an NX conversion. The model was easy enough to do in SW 3D sketching. In NX, it required some awfully cumbersome workarounds. NX is the 500-pound gorilla of surface and hybrid modelling. Absolutely dismal w.r.t. 3D sk...