I would disagree that Workbench is better for most applications. As always, you have to choose the right tools for the job in hand.
Workbench is heavily geometry driven: it will seamlessly interface with most CAD packages (Pro/E, UG et al) and provide geometry associativity and bi-directional interfacing. In English, that means you can develop geometry in the CAD package and provide a "link" between the geometry in CAD and ANSYS Workbench. You run both Workbench and the CAD application/s side-by-side and if any changes are made to the geometry in CAD you can update within Workbench on the fly - reasonable changes to the geometry will mean that if you meshed and set up your loads in Workbench, you can update the geometry in CAD and then update the model in Workbench with these changes on the fly.
Workbench is still being developed, but it now has most of the significant features available that ANSYS has, and has a better mesher in my opinion. Workbench also has a nice friendly interface, which is designed to be almost idiot proof (not sure this is a good thing).
So, Workbench or ANSYS? I personally always use ANSYS, but that's because I always model bottom up. There are pros and cons for each, and without knowing the details it's hard to give you specific guidelines. If your job is relatively simple (simple loads, for example) and you are dealing with 3D geometry (although 1D and 2D features are improving) then consider Workbench. Otherwise in the long run you may want to consider using ANSYS which, as mentioned, gives you access to all complex features (if your licence will allow).
------------
See faq569-1083 for details on how to make best use of Eng-Tips.com