Blip, CS1 was another mediocre update. (But NOT buggy). CS2 was NOT buggy.

As far as the CS3 issues... not everyone has them. But a ton do. Pretty much like anything else. Some folks have problems with programs, some don't. If only a handful have them it pretty much goes by un-noticed. Just that there's a plethora of complaints on the forums. I'm pretty certain it depends a lot on the configuration of the machine itself and possibly some programs/hardware causing a conflict. Perhaps even some dll from another program screwing with an adobe dll or vice versa. Who knows? (certainly not adobe!)

And BTW, IIRC, tomorrow is the last day to upgrade to CS4 from CS. After that, you can only upgrade from CS3.

Well before my computer crashed, I'd been using a *cough* bootleg copy of CS3 and loved it. I switched to the CS4 trial after my computer was fixed and hated it. I also noticed a lot of slowness even on very simple things like opening the program and saving a png.

I finally decided to just break down and spend the money. I checked out ebay and was able to get the full retail version of CS3 Production Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects and Flash) brand new and never registered for more than 60% off the price of the CS4 version. So if you're interested in an upgrade of Photoshop only, you should be able to get some good deals on ebay. It seems a lot of retailers were stuck with an awful lot of CS3 when CS4 came out.

I'm loving CS3 again. No slowness or waiting and no glitches so far either!

FWIW, I bought a "new" copy of CS1 from ebay when it first came out and... it ended up being a hacked copy. Worked ok (with a few annoying glitches), but just so you are fore warned.

That sucks! It's a good warning too. I know that happens a lot with movies and dvd box sets from foreign countries. Mine is the real deal, though. Came in the (I swear) 30 lb box with all the manuals. I've already installed and registered. I'm very happy with it!

Kewl. I'm sure you'll love it. And I hope the bugs don't start to show up for you. (Took me about a month before they slowly started to develop)

I used CS3 for over a year before I bought this one and didn't really notice any bugs. I'm probably just not as skilled at going in depth with it as you are though. I've been using Photoshop for over a decade now but only recently started learning how to do things beyond the basic. For me this is definitely one of the better versions, but there might be so much I have no idea about!