You did excellent and went about it the same way as out forefathers did. I envy that.
I am knowledgeable in animation but it is more technical than experience (no time). I use Toon Boom Animate Pro and it is all sorts of awesome. If you aren't willing to spend several hundred dollars just yet, Pencil is pretty nice and free.
There are quite a few pretty cheap software packages from Toon Boom as well that will help you get started. I promise I'm not a salesman for them. I just like their product.
I looked into it an Pencil is pretty good. The main page for it is pretty well abandoned so I originally ignored it but it's still being worked on on sourceforge.