I don't think Photoshop is that good for artist work
You gotta be jokin' me, I've seen some AMAZING things done from scratch in Photoshop7 that look so real-life in the end.
As for me, I'm yet another (legal) user of Photoshop7, I color my anime piccies with it, and I also create game GFX with it, for pixel-art I use my custom created square brush (as awkwardly there is no preset square brush :P ) and I also use my Wacom Intuos2 9x12" tablet with PS7.
The odd time I'll user ImageReady to put together GIF animations for small things like smilies.