Benefits of Switching to FrameMaker?

I am looking for some guidance regarding the benefits of switching to FrameMaker as my company's documentation authoring tool. Some brief background information: I work for a software company, and one of my roles is authoring and maintaining our product documentation. Currently our documents (probably between 15 and 20 in all) are authored using Word. There isn't anything too fancy or exotic about the documentation: a half dozen different styles are used, graphics are present (embedded as links), and occasionally a table is included. I haven't had any major problems with Word, but it's always nice to see if there are better ways of doing things. Since FrameMaker appears to be touted as the de facto standard for technical writing, I decided to check it out. I've spent a week working with it and going through a number of online tutorials.

After spending some time with FrameMaker, I can see some definite advantages. If I was starting from scratch and could choose between Word and FrameMaker, I would probably go with FrameMaker. However, the issue at hand is that I am not starting from scratch, and what I have been unable to gauge is whether the superior features in FrameMaker are enough to warrant the effort that it will take to convert the existing documentation. I have looked over a couple of different online resources (including some discussions in this forum) to get a feel for the conversion process, and it looks to be extensive. In taking one of my existing documents and running it through the process of cleaning it up in Word, importing it into FrameMaker, and then formatting it in FrameMaker, there has been some significant effort involved. Granted, some of this is due to learning curve issues on my part. But I don't have a good sense of how efficient the conversion process will become as I become better acquainted with the product.

I would love to hear from people who have gone through the same process I have described. Was it worth it in the end? Have the benefits of FrameMaker been significant enough to justify the time and effort that goes into converting legacy documents? Or was it honestly not worth it? Like I said, from what I've seen so far, I can definitely see some value in using FrameMaker over Word - if I could snap my fingers and magically convert all my documents, I think I probably would. But at the same time, I'm not unhappy with Word. Based on my admittedly limited exposure to FrameMaker, I'm not sure I can justify making the switch.

Thanks in advance.
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