I know this thread is nearly a year old, but I’ve been running into just this exact issue and trying to find a solution.
Anywho, as Serif uses “Support for Photoshop Brushes” as a selling point for Affinity Photo, no, I don’t think we should be leaving support for PS Brushes behind (at least not in this current iteration). Like it or not, PS Brushes are still the “industry standard.” And while I love affinity photo (especially the iPad version), advertising it has support for PS brushes and then they don’t work at all well is problematic. Serif is offering a way to get away from photoshop because you don’t have to give up your favorite tools, but then not really.
Especially on the education side of things does this really become a glaring issue. I recently signed up for a digital painting course, and we are encouraged to use the PS brushes supplied by the instructor. These brushes were specifically designed and created for this course. I popped them into AP, only to discover the brushes were pretty much unusable. I almost had to go back to a PS subscription, but luckily I learned Artstudio pro can read the brushes just fine and I was able to use the brushes there without an issue.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to use Artstudio, I don’t want to use PS, I want to use Affinity Photo. If Serif doesn’t want to fully support PS Brushes, that’s fine. But then say there’s no support for it at all and not get hopes up that these brushes will work.
Or, conversely, really allow those PS Brushes to be used and sweep yet another leg out from under Adobe. Just because I use PS Brushes doesn’t mean I won’t use brushes designed specifically for Affinity, it just means I can confidently leave PS behind.