You do seem to get quite a few programs, but unless someone gives me a 95% student discount (works for office) I wouldn't spend $2500...that's like £1500 at least with UK pricing.
the full suite is aimed at pro's usually so the price tag comes with it, which you make back quickly to be honest if you're worthit.
and in truth its nice to see high price tags on PROFESSIONAL software because i'm sick of the
'i've used photoshop therefore i'm a designer'
kids/people out there... deviantart and suchlike are just FILLED with copycats now anything individual is insta cloned within a week
as for home users there are nearly always smaller and less expensive versions of the programs you ACTUALLY need. (the elements series which i haven't seen for cs3 yet tbh)
be interesting to see what performance gain the new 64bit version has over the 32bit...
(according to adobe, not much unless you edit MASSIVE (and i mean MASSIVE) files)
Ive played with the beta version of this last month. Was quite exciting even for me, who dosent really use this kinda stuff. (Im to noob at it honestly) but still exciting.
I watched a video somewhere and they said they have been working alot on the speed of the program. They showed making alterations on the fly and how quick they changed.