HF, I don't know exactly what you may need, but I can tell you my experience until I reach lightroom.
I've allways been a photoshop power-user, I mean, I don't use just the basic stuff, I use lots of clone/stamp tool, lots of layers and blend modes, masks, burning/dodging/smudging with my tablet, and so on, I loved using photoshop on my small volume photos.
I remember how my photo volume increased to the point I started to hate the "open/edit/save as" workflow in photoshop and gimp.
Then I tried Picasa. "wooo!! yaay!" I celebrated! no more open/edit/save workflows! plus, it doesn't destroy the originals when editing, I can browse/crop/white balance/curve my photos in seconds! it was fast, it was easy, but maybe too simple.
I didn't like the color control (white balance, saturation control, color filters, etc), the sharpen was also very simple, and there's no vignette tool (it's a must to me, most of the open/edit/save that I was still doing was to correct colors or to add a vignette).
But the worst of all about picasa is how it handles (most if not all) effects: they get "stacked" one over the other and you can't change the parameters back, you just keep adding another "effect" at the top of the effects stack, and you are not able to pick one of the effects that you have applied and change its parameters... the only way to do that is to "undo" (removing the last effect on the stack) until you reach the effect you want to change...undo that too, apply it again with proper values and then remember all of the effects that came after it and reapply them again... it sure limits me.
then it came lightroom, it was all that picasa wasn't, no more stacked effects, it's got precise control over each effect! great raw handling, an awesome noise reduction, sharpener, white balance, everything is top quality to me, and I love the vignette tool!
one thing I love about LR: say you are playing with an image and it reaches a point where you like it but also want to keep playing... no problem, click "snapshot", put a descriptive name to the "effect" you made so far and keep playing... once you are happy again... snapshot it again, then by just clicking each "snapshot" you can swap between the versions you created to see what looks best... that's the kind of control I needed, or you can alternatively create as many "virtual copies" of a single image as you want, and make different changes to each, they look like different files, but in fact is a single one with different effects applied to it (and it doesn't waste additional space).
the best thing about LR is the workflow, let me tell you what's mine:
I plug my sd card, lightroom launches and I select one of my "import" presets, all my presets copy the files to a predefined folder and changes the filename to date+orig_name so they don't overwrite over time when the file numbers repeat
.Most of my pictures share the same shutter speed/aperture/white balance (as I do lots of off-camera flash session) so I preselect all similar images, click "auto sync" and change one of them only... all others change simultaneously, once I finish I browse them giving them a rank (keys 0 to 5), I usually press the 4 key when the photo is good and 5 when it says "WOW". I try to keep it simple, 4=keepers, 5=must print, everything else is free to be delete or ignored. once I'm done, I filter all images ranked > 4 and "export" there I select one of my presets... for example I have a preset to "copy images to my projector @720p" another export preset is "export jpeg @85% quality", another one: "full jpeg quality for printing", and so on, here;s where you can create a preset for each of your needs: your frame, IM, social network, email, whatever... each one can have a predefined directory (or "ask when export"), output settings (jpg/tiff, quality, resolution, etc) sharpen for screen, for mate print, glossy, etc) it really makes life easier.
the only thing I hate about lightroom is how slow it goes on me, it's not even close to "picasa" speed, but hey... it's still amazing!
hope I didn't overwhelm you , I'm just bored on a business trip at the hotel
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It is a Quat at 
