Now if I could only get some of these guys to realize they don't necessarily need to use Lightroom instead of Photoshop+ACR+Bridge - it doesn't have to be either/or, it could be both, right?
Of course...which is where I find myself all the time. I am very supportive of the Lightroom concept (I was kinda involved from the very beginning) but I also write a darn book on Camera Raw, Bridge and Photoshop. So of course, I gotta use Camera Raw, Bridge and Photoshop (otherwise it's really hard to write about). But I also like and use Lightroom.
When do I use what?
Well, if I have a card of a couple hundred images I just shot that I gotta pick through and select the top 10-20, I would do a Finder copy and open the folder of raw images in Bridge to look through. If you set Bridge to use the imbedded previews (EXIF Jpegs) it can browse images very fast. As long as I copy the image folder to my ~Digital-Captures root folder on my main internal array, I can keep working in Bridge and Camera Raw if I need to do tweaks and view images at 1:1 or above. I may pop some images into Photoshop to look at closer–or not.
At some point however, I'm gonna want to import those images into Lightroom. If I have copied a variety of new image folders into my main root level digital captures folder I can just point Lightroom at the root level folder and hit sync to add any newly copied images into my main Lightroom database. That is currently at just over 110,000.
If I want to find an image, I use Lightroom cause that's a lot easier...if I want to make a print I use Lightroom cause it's a lot easier. Whether I use Lightroom or Camera Raw depends on whether or not I need to do any pixel level editing (I always will when I do final fine art prints cause I need to soft proof–which Lightroom can't do yet). If an image needs pixel level editing, I open from Lightroom into Photoshop–often using Smart Objects. When I'm done pixel editing I save the image as a tiff which then adds the rendered tiff back into Lightroom.
I generally DON'T convert to DNG upon import because I want to go through the basic rounds of image and metadata edits before committing to DNG. As a result I only have to back up the sidecar files that are there with raw originals. I do not run Lightroom to automatically write to .XMP files–I would rather decide that on a folder by folder basis and just save those out when needed. If I pop any images open into Camera Raw I'll see in Lightroom that the metadata has been updated outside of Lightroom then I have to decide whether or not to read the new metadata from the file into the Lightroom database. Generally I ALWAYS want to do that (but that's just the way I set up my workflow as it relates to metadata).
I really don't care if I work in Lightroom or Camera Raw when it comes to raw image editing parametrically. Some aspects of Lightroom I prefer over Camera Raw and visa versa...but I certainly do get into a hissy fit about it. Fortunately most all of Camera Raw and Lightroom keyboard shortcuts are the same. I can even cheat and have an images in Lightroom, select "Show Original" which goes to the folder and highlights the file and do a command 'O' to open in Camera Raw...that's how I use Camera Raw's point curve editor in Lightroom. I just make the changes in Camera Raw hit done then import th metadata from the file to add the newly modified Camera Raw edits into Lightroom–INCLUDING ANY POINT CURVE EDITS I MADE IN CAMERA RAW!
Yeah, it take time and experience and training to use multiple apps for my workflow. I recently had to add Capture One into the workflow because I got a P-65+ back and C1 does better lens corrections. So, I process the images out of C1 as linear DNG then use Camera Raw or Lightroom (or both) to get what I need...
Seriously, Lightroom has a dictated workflow, by design. The op (in a different thread on the Lightroom forums where he also posted the same opening message–poor form that) expressed the opinion that Lightroom must not have done any market research and talked to real photographers about workflow. Point of fact, they did...a LOT of photographers whose workflows were all over the place and ranged from relatively efficient to completely screwed up. That's why Lightroom has a task based workflow imposed by design. You are forced to use the Library for those things the Library was designed for and you must use Develop for fine tuning individual images. The modular based design is in fact far more efficient than using Bridge, Camera Raw and Photoshop if you give in to the philosophy and adopt and adapt it. If you fight it, you're gonna get frustrated because you can't win. You either use Lightroom as it was designed to be used or you use something else such as Camera Raw, Bridge and Photoshop (or other 3rd party apps). And that is by design and done on purpose...
So, either love it or leave it cause Lightroom's basic philosophy ain't gonna change (myself and some others wouldn't allow it).
:~)