Many people overlook the several layers of controls with the CS3 RAW converter and use only the basic controls. Certainly, Michael Aw's latest book glosses over the more sophisticated controls of the RAW converter.
I am one of those who have for the longest time overlooked all the controls provided in the latest ACR converter (CS3) until recently. Flipping through the various tabs in ACR, you can handle noise reduction, sharpening, vignetting, CA adjustments, spot healing, various tone curve tools, etc on top of your basic WB, exposure, saturation controls... Quite powerful indeed. I can see why Lightroom is getting so popular as you can do so much in ACR. There is very lilttle need to fire up photoshop itself unless you are doing various layers or other advance techniques...
