This way they can do minimal upgrades to programs and continue to charge the upgrade fee, but now force users to pay it every upgrade cycle...I had CS3 Photoshop and saw no reason for me, personally, to buy CS4...but I saw many improvements that would help my workflow in CS5 Photoshop, so I bought that upgrade...I don't like 'choice', even when it's minimal, being taken away from me...
I still have both Illustrator and Indesign in CS3 versions...I was going to upgrade both for CS6, but now I'm going to have to rethink my plan. My initial reaction is to upgrade Indesign to CS5...I need a good layout program, but it'll probably be the last upgrade I buy for it. I think I'll stick with Illustrator CS3 and just never upgrade it again. The last few years I haven't been using it much.
I have CS5 so I'll wait till the end of CS6 availability to buy the upgrade unless Adobe offers some incredible new features that I can't live without. I love Photoshop. Been using it since the early 1990's around version 1.8 or so. Version CS5 of Photoshop is sweet. Would hate to have to use something else, but I'm going to start investigating my options. I'm also using and loving Lightroom. Fingers crossed they don't screw with that, but I have serious doubts now.
In this time of economic hardship all over the planet Adobe seems just plain greedy. I'd like to hear the 'positive' side to all this from someone. Ok, it'll fill the bank accounts for some at Adobe. Anything else? I work as a freelance using programs I need to satisfy client demand. I don't need 'cloud' anything to get my work done.
So, what happens now, if I don't buy the CS6 Photoshop upgrade now (spring 2012 or whenever) and I want to buy the CS7 upgrade I have to pay the price to buy Photoshop, the complete program, again? I've been upgrading for about 20 years now. I guess I've bought the whole program, in terms of cost, several times over. The accountants at Adobe must feel that isn't enough. It's hard times at Adobe I guess.