Nice rant
Personally I don't think anyone who doesn't use Photoshop isn't doing real graphics - it doesn't matter to me what package is used
for graphics I started out with Fireworks - which compared with photoshop and paintshop pro is limited.
I own CS2 and PSP9 and, in all honestly, I don't get along with PSP at all. I used it before I got CS2 and hated it so much I almost gave up on the idea of doing anything with graphics. Gary, my other half, on the other hand, prefers it over Photoshop.
I have found occasions where I can't do something in PSP that I can do in Photoshop, but I don't know if that's simply because I don't know PSP as well and just don't know where the option is.
As for the other things you mentioned. I use MS Office on my PC, but I use openoffice on my laptop. I don't use dreamweaver for coding at all, EVER! I use notepad or PHPRapid - depending on what I'm doing.
I doubt that really answers your question as to why tho
