Re: Can you really get a version that says "Bringing on........
there is a real need out there that is being served.
Not only that, but there have not been any *RADICAL* *RE-DEFINITIONS* of the existing interface, either!!! (and if there were, I'd consider FORKING it to resist any "change for the sake of change" like we see in OTHER things... mutter mutter mutter)
Once you learn how it works, gimp is an 'easy to hack with' way of editing graphical things. I've created lots of useful work-related and fun-related graphics with it. Photo editing is easy, and the 'rope select' lets you chop off sections and move them, etc. even things like pasting a head from one photo onto a different body for laughs, easily re-adjusting for size and so on.
Worthy of mention, the stretch/perspective tools are pretty intuitive, so you can do the head-pasting trick, or take a blank wall or computer screen or white board that's at an angle in the photo, and then paste text and/or graphics on it, like with a funny 'meme' thing, and do so easily and with good quality results (as in 'it looks believable' if you do it right).
There are a few things that Windows does more easily, and I'd used the old MS Office photo editor before. The older MS Paint from before the "ribbon" appeared has a few features like making circles and rectangles and filling them with a color, for example, as well as bezier curves, and stuff like that. However, I usually don't do "those things" and maybe there's a "Script Fu" thing written out there that WOULD do them... [I've found a few hacks for the circles and rectangles already]
All in all, 'gimp' is a VERY useful application! I don't know of anything better in the OSS world.