OK - firstly, I think you may be confusing workSHOPS and workBENCHES - two different things that just happen to be right next to each other on the same menu screen.
WorkBENCHES are what you unlock very early in the game that give an 8% bonuses per level to crafting (allowing you to craft more than 1 item for the same amount of resources) .... and the option of crafting more than one thing at a time (per click) for multiple sets of resources (e.g. 4 picks at the same time not including the crafting bonus).
WorkSHOPS are unlocked much later in the game and give you a 10% crafting bonus per level and (when turned on / activated) give you a 10% per level autocrafting speed that boosts the efficiency of such things as banks, blockyards, carpentries, shipyards etc. for a small cost of coal and chemicals (burning for fuel).
I hope this clears a few things up...
And regarding Adventure Capitalist, I don't actually consider that a good idle game... its actually pretty lame and crappy compared to the many others that I have played and aside from the relatively nice graphics a and huge-ass numbers that you go through, the game actually has very little depth and as you've pointed out, no active/hybrid mode.
If you want an absolutely ingenious Idle game with all the goodies you could want, exceptional idle/active/hybrid gameplay AND fancy graphics with a lot of humor peppered in, try ClickerHeroes
I've sunk almost a year into that and still play semi-regularly... and they keep up the update schedule relatively often and with pretty big changes / upgrades sometimes