My problem is that the professionals I work with just use Photoshop and InDesign and expect me to do the same. (and the same problem with Microsoft).
I worked also with Scribus, Corel or other free or cheap programs, if I am alone, it would not be a problem, but if you work with other, it is a problem (at least for me).
Sorry... I'd be one of those "must use Indesign" folks...
I use Photoshop and Indesign daily and have for almost two decades... still the best combo for book and magazine creation IMO and it would be hard to change software at this point. If I didn't use for professional work making money with the product - I would explore the alternatives as well!
I do own Affinity Photo and pull it up every so often when I don't feel like loading Photoshop.. but there is nothing like "old familiar"!
I think the good point of Affinity is that you get a good software for a very reasonable price. And this is especially a good option for Hobby-Users than me, who do not want to pay money every month for a software they rarely use (and it counts up in the end 10€ here, 10€ there ....).
For me, Publisher is the software I waited for. I'm doing Fotobooks as a hobby (and as a way the save images), but InDesign is too expensive for this. I did it with Scribus for a long time, but lets face it: Scribus is outdated. And when I first got Publisher I had really a wow-effect. It makes it much more easier to design the Books. And especially that you can connect it with Photo is a phantastic feature. Because so you can load the pure image into the publisher and do all work on it (e.g. Masking, change the brightness, ect.) without changing the original.
I think for professionals there are a lot of missing features (especially footnotes), but it is very good for hobbyist