Did They Make Better Programs In The Past?

This morningI blogged about processing a photo to look like a painting, and I mentioned Picture Publisher, a graphics program from Micrografx (later purchased by Corel).

I started using Picture Publisher sometime around 1993-94, and I was using it until a little over a year ago, when I finally switched from Picture Publisher 10 (released in 2001, if I recall correctly) to Photoshop CS2.

So why did I use such an old product? Perhaps because Picture Publisher did it´s job, and it did it well. It had all the functions I could ask for at that time, and I could do pretty much anything The program also did use few resources and very little memory, it was fast and also was easy to use.
What it was lacking was layers and other features that the competing programs eventually got. In the lat 90´s, Micrografx stopped developing the product, and it was not until 2000/2001 the two final versions (9.0 and 10) came out. If Picture Publisher would have had layers and a couple of other features, I would probably still been using it. I wonder what it would have looked like if Corel had not stopped developing it”…”

The second "old" program I am using is Cam2PC from NaboCorp. Version 4.6.1 came out in October 2007. It is a very competent program, and as the name indicates, it is used to transfer pictures from a digital camera to the PC. This it is doing better than any other program I found. The pictures are organized by date, and during download you can enter a description to be included in the folder name. Simple editing is built in, like cropping, sharpening, red-eye removal and levels/color. In the paid version (there is a limited shareware/trial version) you can burn pictures to CD/DVD, provided you have Nero Burning ROM installed, and you can mail pictures directly from the program. Well worth the $20 it cost.
I have not found any program to replace it, including Picasa, F-Spotor Shotwell.

So did they simply make better programs a few years ago? Perhaps. Or am I just in my comfort zone and don´t want to learn new things? I don´t think so. I love getting new software, but they have to add something. If they have less functionality than an older program, why should I switch? It´s a little bit like the switch from Notes to Exchange. If it is working and doing the job, why switch to a product that have less functionality, just because it is newer? It is not until the current program is lacking functionality that you need you start thinking about switching.