I have yet to actually use Photoshop because photography is only a passhion for me and I would rather spend the grand on a better camera. I've been using Photoshop Elements for years augmented by a couple of excellent books, one which included Photoshop plug-ins that give Elements a large majority of the curve and tonal controls that make Photoshop so valuable. I finally broke down and bought Elements 4.0 so I could use Camera Raw.
It's interesting to note that some of the tools I see described by Michael in his primer on Lightroom are actually just better versions of gizmos that are already in PE4. The new Tone Curve adjuster, for example, looks a lot like the Shadows/Hightlights adjuster in PE4. The PE4 version lacks the compression sliders on the highlights and shadows, as well as the brightness slider on the midtones.
A good organizer is another matter. Photoshop Elements has always included some kind of organizer tools, and now PE4 has the organizer built right in. I wish I could make it disappear. I also have Adobe Bridge that came with Illustrator CS - I'm a technical writer. In a word, these products suck. I use ACDSee 8 to organize my photos. It runs roughly 10 times faster than anything published by Adobe and has features and ease-of-use attributes that make you wonder what the product managers at Adobe are thinking.
So, as a total amateur on a very limited budget (still using a Canon G3), I've solved my photo editing and processing problems with combinations of economical products that, in some respects, are superior to Adobe professional solutions, not just price-wise.
Now that Adobe has decided to bring an end-to-end workflow product and serious ease-of-use to the pro digital photography market, it would be nice if it doesn't cost the moon and if it's performance is better than just acceptable. There seems to be a tendancy to charge large for well thought-out products even when the thinking is only timely, not necessarily long and expensive. From cars to watches, good design seems to be an excuse to over-charge. We know Adobe is not doing all that well lately. I guess this is a vague hope.
