...I prefer to wait for the day when a superfast broadband 24/7 connection to the web is as ubiquitous&low cost for us all as tap water is here in the U.S.

That would be nice, however I think the ISPs are moving in the opposite direction on that. There is talk of the bigger ones charging usage rates on top of your basic service, due in large part to so many people using services like netflix, amazon, hulu, etc. and dropping their premium movie channels to lower their current monthly cable bills. Really hope that doesn't happen on a wide scale, but who knows. As it is, you don't really have a choice in which ISP you use, in most areas. In my area Time-Warner is the ISP. They bought out all the smaller guys years ago. If you want high speed internet that's who you're getting it from around here. You could get satellite, but who can afford that? They all want contracts and still charge twice as much as cable. My folks are on satellite TV, and even now their signal still breaks up when it gets cloudy.   No I haven't checked out gimp in a while. I might but it was too frustrating to deal with before so I haven't looked up what they've done recently. It still isn't a viable option for me tho, as no one in the industry really uses it. I never see it listed as a requirement in job ads, but I constantly see Photoshop and other Adobe titles listed. I'm looking into getting certified in Photoshop, Illustrator and a couple others as that will help boost my desirability on job searches.