Litchi, Autopilot and most - if not all 3rd party softwares for the Phantoms are designed to supplement DJI Go - not replace it. They add capabilities that don't exist in DJI Go or they add features and robustness to the baseline version of the feature that is provided by DJI Go.
The fact that you say Litchi is less useful for the Phantom 4 tells me that you haven't done any kind of deep dive on the features. You see that Litchi has Follow Mode and so does DJI Go and then you assume that the features are equivalent and that I'd DJI Go contains the feature - it's just as good as the Litchi version of the feature. Same with Waypoints no doubt. Nothing could be further from the truth. Where a feature exists in both Litchi and DJI Go - hands down, the feature is more robust, more capable and more well thought-out than the DJI Go equivalent.
Users should be choosing one of the other for doing ALL of their flying. As you said - DJI Go is free. We should all have it and there are capabilities in it don't exist in any of the third party softwares - for example., the IMU Calibration, Gimbal automatic self-alignment and some of the advanced camera settings. DJI Go should be part of everybody's tool-kit and it should be used when necessary.
When DJI wants to sell more drones by advertising a new capability, they have to provide a way to use that new capability - i.e. Waypoint Mode. They can't tell their customers that they must purchase a 3rd party app to use that feature - so they program in a very basic interface to that new capability. It's like a "reduced functionality free trial" version of what the feature should actually be. DJI knows that anybody serious about using that capability will be purchasing and using a far more feature rich version of the feature in Autopilot or Litchi.
And that's true for both the P3 and the P4.
Litchi and Autopilot are both great add-ons to your Phantom 3 or Phantom 4. No toolbox is complete without at least one of them - and many serious fliers/photographers own both and decide from job to job which one is appropriate for the job at hand.
I don't know of ANYONE that owns Litchi or Autopilot that would EVER choose to use DJI Go for a Follow or Waypoint mission.
If you still somehow disagree - please explain which features in DJI Go surpass its Litchi (or Autopilot) equivalent.
I disagree with the logic behind your recommendations. You've suggested that users should start with A, then progress to B and then finally to C - because of the difficulties associated with learning them. All users should familiarize themselves thoroughly with DJI Go. Beyond that, there is no "progression" through the other apps that should be followed. It depends entirely on the individual user and their particular use cases. I think you've fallen into the trap of assuming that everyone bought their phantoms for the same reasons that you did! For example, a real estate agent that only intends to take a couple aerial snapshots from 50' above a house - and perhaps a video Orbit of the home - could probably get away with using ONLY DJI Go and never looking at anything else. Another user that might want to do some action videography where the drone follows him riding a motorcycle up and down hills will quickly crash into the side of a hill if attempted with DJI Go - whereas Autopilot will handle it like a champ (and Litchi may also work). DJI Go does not handle elevation changes - so "follow" is pretty much only safe to use on a lake! Waypoint missions as well require more than just DJI Go - even though DJI Go advertises the capability! The choice between Litchi and Autopilot depends partly on what you want to focus the camera on. They both have great Waypoint engines (when compared to DJI Go) but Autopilot has far more options than Litchi does - which is great if you need any of those options - bit of you don't need them - Litchi is cheaper and a little easier to use. My point is that each users tool selection should be driven by what they need to accomplish - not which software is next easiest/next cheapest.
When trying to help out new people by giving advice in the future (and I hope you do) try to remember that not everyone uses their drone like you do - and either learn what is important to the user or provide advice appropriate to several different use cases...
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