As for Gimp itself: I must admit that I love it and love it a lot more than Photoshop. I use it to post-process the pictures that I take (example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valanx/sets/72157627905845341/ ) and while I have no need for anything fancy, I have yet to find something that beats the speed of the Gimp.

Yes, Alt+c, adjust, Alt+i, s - you do have to get down to your keyboard if you want speed, but once you're fluent with that stuff, you just breeze through it. Put differently: The Gimp gets out of my way and provides just the functionality that I need. I love that.