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I've never used either personally just because I haven't had a need over the past 15 years (typically only painting one to three figs at a time with long breaks inbetween projects). Have the newer contrast paints mostly replaced the dip method as the technique of choice for getting shading quickly for large amounts of figures? Even if you don't paint mass amounts (like the original dipping method was typically used for in the early 2000's ala hordes of orcs/nids/etc once it broke out of more niche historicals), do you still use dipping regardless? I'm considering trying one or the other for a single large figure (a fantasy style giant with flowing organic lines/clothes/flesh) and was curious about what folks are doing now. I haven't looked at the prices of either (whether official wargaming dips, original wood treatment varnishes, post-varnish dullcoat, and GW/reaper/army painter contrast style paints) so feel free to comment on that aspect as well.

Contrast paints and similar products are not really about the shading despite the name. The main feature is the speed of basecoating. Any shading and highlighting provided is just additional benefit. To give an idea of the speed of Contrast paints, imagine traditional basecoat-shade-highlight method where the shade provides the base colour, eliminating the most time-consuming part of the process.

People still use overall shading methods similar to old dipping but often for specific purposes, such as weathering with oil washes. With Contrast paints, overall shading isn't usually needed because every colour provides it own shading. That being said, I have found that to make the most out of Contrast paints you often need to add shades on top or pre-shade to make shadows stronger.

I enjoyed brush-on dipping back in the day but I find very little use for it nowadays.

Thanks. I've never used both but just from looking at the final results it seemed like the biggest effect was quick monotone shading across the whole model for dipping or one color for contrast. For organic flowing models, it seemed like a good choice.