Yeah... autosave can get a little hiccuppy and I'm OCD enough to stay on top of saving (especially after getting REALLY burned by crashes during the X2 days).
Although I use the regular Save function I actually think I use Save As almost as frequently. My project folders are jam packed with versions of every incremental step of the project. Like I'll set up the project for my "learning/writing" phase and label it "Start". Then I'll immediately Save As again with "Start Scratch". This way if my test takes aren't working out or I have the parts figured out well enough to not need whatever tests I did I can return to the blank version. Then I'll do something like "Start Tracking Rhythm Finals" and record all the parts that will be in the final release. As I do this I'll occasionally do a Save As with a numbering scheme "Tracking Rhythm Finals 1" or "2" and so on. If I set up for a new part or task I'll change the title to "Tracking Lead Scratch Start" or "Edit Drums Start" and again as I work number those as I progress.
May seem excessive and perhaps it is but it serves two purposes for me.
1) is to avoid corruption. hings aren't nearly as bad as they used to be but I do still experience what I think is a higher project corruption rate than others. Not sure why that is... either my system and/or I'm just really agressive sometimes (like I do something extremely heavy duty without thinking and boom... corruption). It only happens maybe once or twice per project (at most) but when it does I have to scrap it. Usually there is a crash or the project starts getting glitchy then it'll just get worse and worse until it's unuseable. So if I notice something is going glitchy I revert to the last working version and lose very little work (if any at all).
2) I find that just using Save then experiencing a crash sometimes doesn't mean I can get that project working again. I've been burned by this a lot in the past (in X2) which is why I adopted this method. Basically after the crash I might be able to get the project open again but it'll start acting all weird and eventually corrupt completely. Opening a Save As instead totally avoids that. Not sure why opening a Save project after a crash does this but I'm guessing since it's the same exact project stored in the same place that something bogus happens to the file (sometimes). With a Save As version it's completely separate from the crash.
3) It makes it a lot easier to keep the project clean and go back to earlier versions whenever I want for whatever reason. Since I do sooooo many takes and tests as I write and track and try out lots of wacky production tricks that can cause damage this is a good option to have. For example... all those Scratch takes I do and even my final tracks turn into a MOUNTAIN of crud which weighs the project down. So once I get something tracked and comped how I like I can simply export or copy ONLY the takes/comps I want and import them into the much cleaner "Start" version of the project. Like I might end up with a dozen versions of the project just from rhythm guitars. I take the finals from the last version and import them into the 1st emptier version. Even with Archive and all the other stuff we can do to keep resource consumption low I think projects can still start getting wacky just because they've been manipulate more often. So it's like all that work and saving never happened and the project is newer and more stable. It's also less crap to look at/wade through and keeps me from getting distracted with dumb stuff like "hmm... maybe I'll try THIS take instead" or whatever. If I made the decision something is the "Final" part then I did it for a reason. Any time I go farting around I almost ALWAYS end up going with my original choice so why waste time and tempt those distractions. I can also send that project to someone and it'll be a lot less huge and crazy for the receiver (if you guys saw some of my projects you'd be "WTF Beeps?!!" lol...
We've got that new Save Copy As that looks interesting and I know it could probably end up being a better option for my little system but I haven't quite wrapped my head around the full implications of it yet so it remains outside my process for now. I guess really it just means I could work in one project for as long as I want or it remains stable and just poop out my versions as I go without thinking about them until I need them. In fact maybe I'll try it out on my next big adventure.
tl;dr
Beeps is a spazz who uses Save As.