Exactly....Lightroom is already basically a pared-down selection of features from Photoshop/ACR/Bridge. What would they peddle a subscription to "Lightroom Elements" for? 99 cents per month?
I don't think your statement is accurate. LR offers a number of features that are not duplicated in Photoshop/ACR/Bridge. And I'm not talking about face recognition, the Map module, the Book module, or, God help us, the Web module. I don't use any of those "features."
As an example, it is far, far easier to print out of LR than Photoshop, at least if you want a quick and simple workflow using presets. I love just clicking on "Exhibition Fibre - 17x22 - B&W" to make all the necessary settings instead of having to drill down though multiple dialog boxes.
Another function LR provides that your triumvirate doesn't is DAM functionality. I need to provide 20-30 photographs to the folks who are running a workshop I'm attending in November. They want the photographs to get an idea of what and how I photograph, which is rather difficult because the workshop is a landscape workshop--and I don't normally photograph landscapes. I think I have a three or four landscape photographs in my catelog. They also want a selection of "missed shots," i.e. photographs that didn't work out for some reason (not technical mistakes). For some reason, every landscape photograph that I have has ended up in the missed shots selection. (grin)
Making those selections out of about 25,000 photographs is a misery, but it is much easier using the selection criteria, filters, and collections features in LR. Trying to do that with Bridge is something I don't even want to think about. What I'm sending has been drawn from several years of work. Digging through folder after folder is not very efficient.
At least I'm down to 48 selects, all in one collection, and I get to enjoy pruning eighteen of those in the next couple of days. However, that's simple. All I need to do is remove the rejects from the collection, and when I hit the magic number it's simple to export the files in the format they require, renaming them as I export.
I do dip into Photoshop, mainly to use the better "healing tools" and occasionally to do selection layers when I need to make very localized adjustments. But I do about 98% of everything in LR, and that's why I am unhappy with what Adobe thinks are the highest priorities in the evolution of the program.