Simple drawing or photo-editing program wanted

[Tim Streater]

Just stick with the version you have, then, that works. I'm still using LR 5.7 and am unlikely to give it up.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its amazing how software reaches a perfectly adequate level of usability, and then progresses to become more bloated, unwanted feature ridden, difficult to use, and buggy.

[chop]

Plenty doesn't, most obviously with iOS

Ditto on the unwanted. In spades with Office.

Ditto.

Even that is bogus, most obviously with Win11.

But it is hardly surprising that with more features, you do see more bugs.

[Tim Streater]

That's because to add these extra features typically requires distorting the original design structure of the app to shoehorn things in. So the addition of the "new" feature causes edge cases to appear which can't be solved. People try, though, but the effect is that while one edge case gets fixed, another pops up elsewhere.

You also have to remember that too many original devs are smart-arses who need to show off about how clever they are. So stuff gets done in tricky ways in teh original app, sometimes too tricky for the poor sod of a maintenance programmer who gets handed the task of looking after a mature product.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And if only management were better, those wankers would get fired.

[alan_m]

+1 I often think that the original software writer had a clue but subsequently inherited by someone who has decided that it looks dated and needs a new all singing and dancing interface to interface with your kitchen appliances :)

[Chris Hogg]

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once!

[John Rumm]

While not being a fan of SAAS in general, it would be fair to note that the £600/year package is for the complete creative suite including apps like InDesign, and Illustrator, not just photoshop.

(and the OP says he already has photoshop!)

You can rent photoshop as part of the photography plan at £10/month

(or in my case, I decided to stick with CS5 that I bought years ago)

Unless you want a business version.

If starting from scratch, then perhaps. If you have years worth of experience with a particular application - especially one as vast as photoshop, you will often find the relearning costs can dwarf the acquisition cost.