Re; Layers in ALibre V9.0
I've been using Alibre for several years and never once had a need to use the Layers functionality. By using the Design Explorer, I can rapidly select multiple part instances in an assembly to either hide or suppress. I can also open an individual part in an edit window to get an accurate weight/mass figure and then quickly drop back into assembly mode. I find the lack of layers to be a non-issue, whether I'm working in a single part or an assembly.
The ability to create Configurations on the other hand is a huge addition to the Alibre Design arsenal. If you're just using it as a substitute for Layers, (which by the way I can't believe anyone is) then you're missing the most important aspects of this versitle tool.
We all have our special likes and dislikes when it comes to our design tools, and no company can please all it's users all the time, you can go back to Lincoln's saying, "you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people, all of the time." and substitute 'please' for 'fool'. I think Alibre does an excellent job of pleasing the vast majority of it's users, most, if not all of the time. Else why would the user base be growing at the rate it is?