Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style? Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style? 

I have used refworks and endnote for years and from 3 years ago I decided to ditch them both  and do the whole referencing business by hand because of frustrating problems they caused many times (references showing up incorrectly, having to manually add papers, references suddenly missing etc.). I only dump pdf files in them to keep a record of the references. I have been doing fine and I think it has been pretty efficient in three years I have had two change citation style manually twice which was painful but that was it. 

I decided using endnote today again because i am writing a major review article. And already its painful! After inputting 15 references manually as the pdf files that can not be identified correctly (beats me why! clear pdf with OCR) and spending 30 minutes inputting the references, and then searching them to add them back in the paper I am doubting my decision! 

Can anyone give me some motivation on why to use these tools really? I mean yes style change and finding duplicates can be good. But is that it? I feel like going back to basic but think there must be something wrong with me as it seems everyone else is using them without going insane!
It depends what you mean by using bibliography software. I think of bibliography software as doing three things:


They help you organize, search, and find your references. While
Pubmed and Google Scholar are quite efficient at finding references
for my field, I often prefer to search my own library of papers I am
familiar with when looking for a reference. I use JabRef for this
purpose and it saves me loads of time even when not converting
citation styles.
They help you create a reference list at the end of a
manuscript/grant/etc. If you have a database you simply need to tell
the software what papers have been referenced and what format you
want the reference list in. This saves you time when you convert
styles (and the first time you create a list). I don't think it
really does anything else. The key is that in my opinion ALL
bibliography software does this stage well for ALL styles. I see no
reason not to use bibliography software to create a reference list
at the end. This is the section where it is easy to make minor
mistakes and can waste a lot of time getting the style correct
They help you with formatting in text citations. This is where most
of the software falls down. In text citation styles have a lot of
variability (book, chapter, article, first time citation, subsequent
citation on a page, citation in a foot note, etc) that make
automation hard. Defining an automated system that can implement an
in-text citation style is no small task. Even if you can create such
a definition, many publishers have small in house tweaks. Create
software that is fully compliant with a style and allows for tweaks
to be made easily, is even harder. If you are lucky enough that your
software has the style you need, or that your target publishers are
easy going enough, then using bibliography software for your in-text
citations is a no brainer. If you are not so luck, you may not want
to use that feature.


In summary I would always use bibliography software for 1 and 2, but only for 3 if I am lucky.