jepho

I hardly know where to begin. I sincerely hope most of what you wrote was ill-conceived and ill-written. Because it is pretty elitist and ill-informed in places.
I really don't know what you actually mean here. So I likely have a wrong take on it. I take it to literally mean that "amateurs" and "consumers" should have no say in how you work, your work-flow. But I don't think that simple restatement is what is meant. I take it to mean you don't want them involved in, having a say in, what functions are included and how those functions should work in a layout application. And in this thread, specifically how APub functions and what those functions even are.
I find that simply silly. Just how many decision makers at Adobe that are making decisions about InDesign are even competent in its use? And by competent, I mean even at a novice level? How many people at Serif that are making decisions are competent layout persons? At Quark? 
Nah, not tautology, but whatever.
I have seen layouts of all sorts from "consumer" users that rival much "professional" work. And I have seen work from a few people that have grown over the years in their abilities, and yet at best are laypersons. Conversely, I have seen dreck from professionals. That learning road is the exact same road we all travel. How well one learns, how well one performs, is not tied to a paycheck. But we all, lay people and experienced people alike, have all traveled that road.
I have no idea when it was during your journey you considered yourself a professional. But I would reckon you are better, quicker, your eye more assured now than the day you considered yourself a professional. At least I hope so. Don't judge the part-timer's work by your current standard. Judge by that once upon a time period. And then look around at Amazon's selections of POD and use their Quick-look to peak inside. Yep, you'll find some not so good layouts, poor decisions, rivers and the like. But you should also find some damn good layouts done by the casual person, the consumer user.
I think I have said all I want to say in response to your posts. Neither will convince the other. We seem to have a fundamental difference of opinion.
Take care, Mike

Not really. So I too disagree with your kind self.
Making functionality simple to use enhances good practice in work-flows. That is a benefit to a very wide range of users. That doesn't mean dumbing down in any way. Simple can also be elegant.
Making text styles more assured in use, for example, benefits this wider range of users. Making master pages work as per ID/QXP/Etc., benefits everyone and ensures a better work-flow (and master pages are having a look at by Serif). So-called consumer users may not be up to speed from the get-go no matter whether they are using Word, MS Publisher, APub, Q or ID. But how else do they do so? By using whatever software they end up with and coming here for help. It's no different than on the job training whether they are being paid for it or not.
As for the quote below--I accidentally posted to soon...
Nah. Consumers that care will learn. In my experience here, on the Plus line forum, the Q forum, the various other forums, Adobe's ID forum and the Facebook groups, people are more than eager to learn. Heck, most all of them I have dealt with in the past decades, take instruction, challenges and the learning opportunities better than professionals.
I have pointed consumer users to Wikipedia and other sites to gain learning. So have many others here. They usually respond that it was a good learning experience.
So to have I seen consumer (simply non-professionals) do work akin to most all professionals. Easy--but not dumbed down--software is a leveling field. They may not do it as quickly, they may stumble here or there, but they can do excellent work.

I have no data on this. My intuition is that the advent of the CC model will have brought some users into the DTP software fold; who previously would not have considered using ID. I would be surprised if there was any significant bonus for QXP in this move to enrol prosumer/consumers into using what were once known as the main formal DTP software packages. The POD/Photo book market is relatively new and many of the providers of those services also provide the necessary website gubbins to make the books under their own aegis. I would agree that these users are not really to be considered as professionals, even if they are going on to sell the books.
Absolutely! The dilemma for Serif is that their approach was to state that the program would be aimed at professionals. It is unsurprising that professionals would wish to assess the software. The point was well made by @JGD when describing his concerns for the GM release of Publisher. We have witnessed many calls in these forums for GREP find and replace, Master Page fixes, Anchors, Grids and columns fixes and other omissions... any of which could halt the current workflow of professional pre-press users of DTP softwares dead in its tracks. The sheer volume of commentary on several of these issues should have caused the developers to pause and think about whether their current offering will be good enough at GM release time.
My own conversation with @Steps in this thread underlines the scale of the issues facing Serif. I could resolve the issues that @Steps is experiencing very easily but he is starting from a place which I had not expected. This means that my convoluted hints and explanations are of little value to his specific situation. A simple example is the generation of a high resolution PDF file. MacOS can do this natively with any file that can be printed from any application on the desktop. Until one has seen all of the options which can be adjusted in Acrobat, before a print from a PDF file is made, then all potential new users of DTP software have insufficient information to proceed. 
If I make the assumption that Serif is serious about marketing Publisher to the professional market, I must assume that they are willing to market Publisher in a form which includes all of the obscure abilities that only a professional would know about or would want to use. The beta process is one means by how this objective would be achieved. Some of the comments I have seen in these pages, from the development team members, have suggested that some omissions are likely to remain absentee facilities.
Does this mean that Serif exhibit a refusal to consider the software in the light of comments from professionals... or was it an underestimation of the manner in which professionals work? I cannot say and it is not a very profitable line of inquiry. What should be obvious is that without a very clear and specific idea of where the software is heading, apropos the omissions discussed within these forums; there is likely to be a subset of professionals who will be unable to commit their time to this very worthwhile project.
I respectfully disagree with these two propositions. My issue is that they are mutually exclusive. I have little to no interest in what any consumer wants from the software. My rationale is this... any concession to the consumer users is likely to result in a dumbing down of the software. My earlier point about facilities needing to be what a professional wants and can use professionally remains unsullied by consumer demands. I don't want to read about a consumer user complaining that the font kerning pairs options are taking up some much needed space on the menu bar.
It is likely that the professional software instruction set refers to concepts for which consumers have no previous information or experience. e.g. Typefaces have x-heights, ascenders, descenders, counters, legs, bowls, bars, loops, cap heights, serifs, collars, links, necks and stems et al. A consumer will not want the correct terminology used whereas a professional will want the instant understanding that accompanies their own specialist knowledge when seeing specific and meaningful terminology. 

But here's the rub. By seat-count, the largest user base of ID is exactly that: consumers/prosumers. But I suppose it depends upon one's definition of professionals. For the most part, I do not include people creating POD (typical) books in the term. Nor those who use it for illustrated/photo books. But those two segments are a large portion of ID's user base.
I do agree about people making their living, or a substantial portion thereof, from (in this case) layout software having valid complaints, suggestions, etc., concerning APub's direction, capabilities, work-flow, etc. God knows I've had a fair bit of all those discussion types. As well, consumer users need to have their input as that will be the largest segment of users.
Usability studies should have been done early on and repeated with both previous and new test users (if they didn't that is) before the software saw this public beta. I believe how certain things are done and even what functionality may have been different by the time the beta was available. Once released, there will be a public roadmap and we'll all see what the near-future will bring.
The Professional moniker used in marketing is just marketing hype for the most part. It is designed to attract the eye of the consumer-level user. It certainly isn't aimed at the professional user. People making their living or a substantial portion of their revenue from layout software won't pay that marketing hype any attention. As you mention, Affinity software cost will not be much of a consideration, at least for the most part. But I do know some professionals that are attracted by their cost and bought a license just because of the price and will purchase a license for APub when available.
I too will purchase a license. Certainly not because it meets all or a good portion of my needs. I simply desire to support Serif. And should how work-flow issues are resolved & how functionality is change/expanded/included in the future, well, that will simply be a bonus for me. I have sent some commercial work to print already and I will choose to do work in it for commercial purposes in the future.
Mike

Windows 10 64-Bit Build 1809.
I think I'm going to write that into my signature as most people here. :-D
No, sorry, I missed that I also like to place decorative frames.
Figuring out the right way to do that is quite a hassle compared to printers photobook software or PagePlus X9 which support that out of the box. But it can be done once you figured out how Publisher expects the handling with masks.
I attached a screenshot of what I'm working on right now that pretty good sums all all features I use and need right now.
I scale my photos to 4500 x 3000 pixels and my printers wants 4.527 x 2.299 pixel sized images for a double page on the book size I want. He has templates for Photoshop and InDesign. I work based on a PSD import.
I started of desiging my photobook with Photoshop Elements, but I quit that due to two problems: 1) the imported images get rasterized on saving and later on resizing the get blurry. 2) after rotating an layer the rotation information is discarded and selecting it back shows it with 0° rotation. So once rotated you never come back to zero rotation. Really stupid.
My printer would accept a bunch of JPGs also, but he recommends PDF and I quite like the idea of having a high-quality PDF for archival, sending around and ordering books from. PDF is a great format in that regard.
Also as usual for all printers that accept PDF he gave out detailed instructions how to export the PDF in regard of color space, ICC profile and so on. So this is a safe way to do it.
Yes, I also like ePub. Using it as intermediate format sounds cumbersome to me.
Are there good programs suitable for photobook creation that export to ePub and lack a PDF export? In that case that would be an option and justify doing an extra conversion.
When Publisher gets an ePub export I would also export that beside the PDF, PSD and JPGs. I use multiple export formats to ensure that in 30 years from now I can still use that.
Yes, that would be awesome. :-)
I will addintional export to the TIFF in the future.
But my printer will convert to JPEG anyway.

The issue is not one of price for professional users. I don't mean that professionals can stand to pay anything because the client will always bear the cost of software and equipment. The fundamental question to answer before a tool is used professionally is this; Will it do the job? Every tool has to be justified in terms of its cost when set against its utility. Buying a tool that does not do what is required is wasted expense and effort, even if the tool only cost the user £1. Possibly it is more of a calamity if the tool costs the user several thousand pounds but the value of the tool lies in what it permits the user to do, easily and accurately.
If you were to commission me to create a portrait of you and you want the framed image to be 60 x 40 metres in size, you would be concerned if I turned up with one small camera and nothing else. You would expect to see flash units and continuous lighting, slave units, stands, background materials, a few props and at the least a medium or large format digital camera. I would usually bring a back-up camera, spare batteries, an exposure meter and a colour temperature meter along with assorted gobos, snoot and barn doors for the lighting and numerous reflectors of different colours too. My living depends upon me selecting the right tool for the job. The item at the URL:  https://www.polaroid.com/products/cube-plus-action-camera just will not do the job required.
Designing any number of project types with a computer is pretty much taken for granted.  A myriad software solutions exist to solve any specific problem and job type. Desktop publishing for pre-press purposes is a purely professional pursuit. It is largely the preserve of graphic designers, professional photographers, technical writers and book publishers. If you are designing a single page flyer at home for your local darts club, you are unlikely to want more than a basic page, images and a little text handling. Most image editors will handle that requirement. You will not want to be bothered by page numbering, index/table of contents, foreign text and R to L or vertical text, traps, glyphs, drop caps, dot gain, colour management, typeface handling and a whole raft of considerations that MUST be decided upon before sending output to be printed.
The missing bits of Publisher are essential to any software that claims to be professional because the pre-press professional is unable to work accurately without them. The line, to which you refer, must not drawn below what a professional would need to use the software. The constraint must be placed upon all other non-professional users otherwise the software is doomed to be sub-optimal for professional use. Back in the day, no amateur had even heard of Photoshop when digital imaging was in its infancy. Most cameras had manual controls and I could control shutter speed, aperture, and if a light meter was included in the body (rarely) ISO. Film images were scanned by drum scanning bureaux and pre-press assembly was handled by dedicated software such as raster image processors and computer to plate programs. Pages were manually pasted up before being imaged and sent to an image setter.
These tasks are all largely automated today but they must still be completed. The purpose of professional software is to permit the users to undertake work on a professional basis and charge the client for doing so. When the software does not permit the task to be done, it prevents the client's needs from being serviced. Take typing for reprographic work. Imagine a worker being asked to produce a 50,000 word text for a corporate brochure. It was laboriously typed, proof read and corrected and then typeset and imposed for production. If colour was required then spot or corporate colours were designed into the project. If the client, on seeing the proof copy, wanted to make changes in font, colour placement and content, the assembled document would have to be taken apart and adjusted. The process would be completed again and when the final proof copy was signed off, the work would be printed, quality checked and sent to the client and with luck and a fair wind, the client would pay on receipt.
Good pre-press software handles all of these tasks such as changing text content. It can be achieved more rapidly but it still must be done and the facility to do the work must be included in the software. It may never be used but were the client to demand it, the designer must be able to meet their needs or else the software is just an impediment. The accuracy with which the software works is also an issue when using it in production work. If I cannot be sure that my content placement (such as gutters) is accurate to three decimal places, a cut through the final printed pages when assembling say... a book which is to be perfect bound may have some of the content obscured by the glue or stitching. A professional software will not permit such inaccuracies. When I print a proof image for a client, I want the client to see every detail, in the right colours and at the actual size of the final image.
In my opinion, you are not the target audience for the Publisher software. That you can make sense of the program and use it for your purposes is a side effect of how well the system has been designed and programmed. As you scale the learning curve and become more familiar with the software's uses and capabilities, you may bump up against its limitations. While you are using it for your own purposes it will not matter too much. Should you ever want to use the software commercially, it will become a major hurdle.  

I am not too sure about your processes but the issues you raise are all amenable to resolution. What computer OS are you using? Windows or MacOS? 
"Placing images, crop and rotate them, add an outline, add an shadow and some artistic text here and there"
Is the work profile you have listed above all that you require?
"With the printers software I can do that for free, BUT it will not give me a high-quality printable PDF to keep forever"
This looks to be resolvable by changing your methods slightly. For help with this, I would like to know what image sizes are you using and what resolution do you send to the printer? The printed quality of a digital image depends on the number of pixels which are native to the image.
"Printers even do not offer to give one a PDF-version of the book for money. And you can't get a PDF out of it in any way"
You may find it better to publish to an ePub format and then send that file to a printer. Something like Calibre can convert the file. If you use a Mac then Apple iBooks is your answer. You can create a book that is virtually an ePub book and it can import and export PDF files.
Extracting the best resolution from your images depends on not processing them into jpeg files. I would suggest 16bit tif files if you intend the images to retain detail and colour information. the PDF files produced from these images will be the highest quality that you can achieve but that is a conversation for another thread.
edit: I forgot to add that you can use a book printing service like Blurb. I have included a link to one of my books at... http://www.blurb.com/books/233471-bricolage
The images were all processed as 16bit tif files in Photoshop around 2009. 

I guest not, but the whole pricing of the Affinity range attracts amateurs. So it may be also meant for them judging from that. What I want to say is that the 829€ for QXPress or the InDesign costs are a clear statement to me that I'm not the target audience. I could never justify the costs. Never ever.
Publisher in it's current state is actually pretty well suited for creating photobooks as a side effect - even with it's annoying usability flaws here and there.
Of course I don't use 80% of what it's capable of as I have no need for that. And yes, I would mind pay extra for that. But I got the feeling that it's not necessary.
All I do is what you can already do with the printers software: Placing images, crop and rotate them, add an outline, add an shadow and some artistic text here and there. Pretty basic. With the printers software I can do that for free, BUT it will not give me a high-quality printable PDF to keep forever. And I fear loosing all my work when a printer goes out of business and the propritary photobook file is no more readable and the book can't be reordered after it got lost or destroyed (or whatever). I'm so anxious to come in that situation that I learn this software and willing to pay the price for the whole Affinity bundle just for the safety not to loose hours of work. So I see that as a insurance fee.
Printers even do not offer to give one a PDF-version of the book for money. And you can't get a PDF out of it in any way.
If Serif had not made clear from the beginning that Publisher will be priced like the other two products I would not bother testing and using it.
I still can see the problem that you as a professional who makes money out of it are still ready to pay (let's say) 400€ for it as it's still half the price of QXPress and after a few jobs you have earned the money back and start saving. For me the money is lost forever in exchange for the PDF export options.
Before checking out Publisher I looked at some products that seem to target my audience with the same fears. A prominent example that also came out this year is a software called "YouDesign Photo Book". You get for 47€ a "basic" version and the "pro" version for 97€. Both can produce printable PDFs (to send to printers), but they stripped numeric entering of sizes & rotations, guides and rulers from the basic version. Ridiculous! And with starting discount Publisher will beat that price anyway.
I really currently see absolutely no alternative for my purpose to Publisher and I hope Serif will not change the planned pricing into the commercial region as I would not know what to do then.
Okay, Scribus is still there. But it's a real usability nightmare and gets me really angry using it. The problems with Publisher (for amateurs like me!) are "complaining on a high comfort level" as we Germans like to say.

The issue is not one of price for professional users. I don't mean that professionals can stand to pay anything because the client will always bear the cost of software and equipment. The fundamental question to answer before a tool is used professionally is this; Will it do the job? Every tool has to be justified in terms of its cost when set against its utility. Buying a tool that does not do what is required is wasted expense and effort, even if the tool only cost the user £1. Possibly it is more of a calamity if the tool costs the user several thousand pounds but the value of the tool lies in what it permits the user to do, easily and accurately.
If you were to commission me to create a portrait of you and you want the framed image to be 60 x 40 metres in size, you would be concerned if I turned up with one small camera and nothing else. You would expect to see flash units and continuous lighting, slave units, stands, background materials, a few props and at the least a medium or large format digital camera. I would usually bring a back-up camera, spare batteries, an exposure meter and a colour temperature meter along with assorted gobos, snoot and barn doors for the lighting and numerous reflectors of different colours too. My living depends upon me selecting the right tool for the job. The item at the URL:  https://www.polaroid.com/products/cube-plus-action-camera just will not do the job required.
Designing any number of project types with a computer is pretty much taken for granted.  A myriad software solutions exist to solve any specific problem and job type. Desktop publishing for pre-press purposes is a purely professional pursuit. It is largely the preserve of graphic designers, professional photographers, technical writers and book publishers. If you are designing a single page flyer at home for your local darts club, you are unlikely to want more than a basic page, images and a little text handling. Most image editors will handle that requirement. You will not want to be bothered by page numbering, index/table of contents, foreign text and R to L or vertical text, traps, glyphs, drop caps, dot gain, colour management, typeface handling and a whole raft of considerations that MUST be decided upon before sending output to be printed.
The missing bits of Publisher are essential to any software that claims to be professional because the pre-press professional is unable to work accurately without them. The line, to which you refer, must not drawn below what a professional would need to use the software. The constraint must be placed upon all other non-professional users otherwise the software is doomed to be sub-optimal for professional use. Back in the day, no amateur had even heard of Photoshop when digital imaging was in its infancy. Most cameras had manual controls and I could control shutter speed, aperture, and if a light meter was included in the body (rarely) ISO. Film images were scanned by drum scanning bureaux and pre-press assembly was handled by dedicated software such as raster image processors and computer to plate programs. Pages were manually pasted up before being imaged and sent to an image setter.
These tasks are all largely automated today but they must still be completed. The purpose of professional software is to permit the users to undertake work on a professional basis and charge the client for doing so. When the software does not permit the task to be done, it prevents the client's needs from being serviced. Take typing for reprographic work. Imagine a worker being asked to produce a 50,000 word text for a corporate brochure. It was laboriously typed, proof read and corrected and then typeset and imposed for production. If colour was required then spot or corporate colours were designed into the project. If the client, on seeing the proof copy, wanted to make changes in font, colour placement and content, the assembled document would have to be taken apart and adjusted. The process would be completed again and when the final proof copy was signed off, the work would be printed, quality checked and sent to the client and with luck and a fair wind, the client would pay on receipt.
Good pre-press software handles all of these tasks such as changing text content. It can be achieved more rapidly but it still must be done and the facility to do the work must be included in the software. It may never be used but were the client to demand it, the designer must be able to meet their needs or else the software is just an impediment. The accuracy with which the software works is also an issue when using it in production work. If I cannot be sure that my content placement (such as gutters) is accurate to three decimal places, a cut through the final printed pages when assembling say... a book which is to be perfect bound may have some of the content obscured by the glue or stitching. A professional software will not permit such inaccuracies. When I print a proof image for a client, I want the client to see every detail, in the right colours and at the actual size of the final image.
In my opinion, you are not the target audience for the Publisher software. That you can make sense of the program and use it for your purposes is a side effect of how well the system has been designed and programmed. As you scale the learning curve and become more familiar with the software's uses and capabilities, you may bump up against its limitations. While you are using it for your own purposes it will not matter too much. Should you ever want to use the software commercially, it will become a major hurdle.  

And I would mind. Really.
One of the main strengths of Affinity is that they beat the Adobe Elements range in price while providing more features.
I doubt that Affinity wants to split their products into different versions as this adds confusion to users and is surely an overhead to manage all that. The hardest thing there is to decice where to draw the line which features are for the professional edition and what amateurs may need.

Status: Public Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: 64 Bit Win 7 SP1 / Win 8 / Win 10 
Hi,
We are pleased to announce Affinity Publisher build 206 is now available on auto-update and as a manual download from the link above.
As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. Many thanks for your continued feedback.
Short of major catastrophe this will be our last update until January, so I would like take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. Many thanks for your continued feedback.
--
Main View
Some common tools missing shortcuts
Fixed issue setting ruler origin for spreads other than first
Fixed Pen Tool not initially snapping to grid when document opened
Fixed Rotation Centre not snapping to guides
Fixed issue with panels (e.g. Styles) resizing content when scheme changes
(Mac) Fixed special case of Ctrl+V failing as a shortcut
(Win) Basic Grid fails to show 'Spacing' and 'Divisions' entry boxes on Grid and Axis Manager
Loading / Saving
Fixed failure to save if HEIC file is used in document
The term 'Embedded Document' is replace with 'Linked Document' in the UI when appropriate
Fix for Picture Frame Properties defaults not saving correctly
Pages and Document Setup
Added option to switch an existing Master Spread between Single and Facing
Import / Export / Print
Fix for PDFs with different DPI to document DPI importing at the wrong size
(Win) Print max copies increased to 9999 
Pre-print check warns about overflow when text is hidden.
Fix for Crop Marks appearing in document area on Print
Text
Fixed Drag Drop text from Finder / Explorer to drop into existing frame if available
Capitalisation not being set when text frame is selected
Fixed Drop Caps alignment when using Baseline Grid
Fixed Baseline Grid alignment for second page of vertical spread
Fix for linked text frames flipping link order to match z-order when cloned
(Win) Fixed limits on Paragraph Justification settings
(Win) Fix for a new 'Based on' text style not being set up correctly from its base style
Fix for 'No Style' not removing Lists, Drop Caps, Initial Words attributes
Fix for 'Decrease List Level' not always working correctly
(Mac)Removed recently used fonts erroneously placed at top of 'All' section
Fix for Optical Alignment with quotations causing Artistic Text to jump horizontally
Find and Replace
(Mac) Fix for entering comma into Find Field
Fixed tabbing issues in Find and Replace Panel
Implemented better 'Replace All' behaviour
Other Panels
Fixed Assets subcategory order not being remembered after restart
Fix for crash when adding to a Symbol after deleting all the children in a detached instance
Double Click to add Glyph in Glyph Browser could crash if tool was not active
(Win) Fixed History scrolling with the mouse wheel removed highlight
Resource Manager
Different images are grouped as the same in Resource Manager when opening PDF
Fixed Colour Profile in Resource Manager not updating when image replaced
---
Earlier Release Notes Beta 192

Yep. That's exactly my point of view as well. I use whatever software is good for the task at hand; I've been using Affinity Designer for CMYK and RGB gradients, as they look[ed?] much better than Adobe's shoddy implementation, and have this nifty little test file set up with spot colour gradients and transparencies to periodically check how far along the Serif team is on their support thereof (I am happy to say they are progressing well, though they're not quite just there, yet).
Absolutely true. I know Serif developers, like any other, are only human. Maybe it was too soon, or maybe it wasn't. Gmail was in beta for years on end, and nobody complained; many Rev.A Apple products, like the Apple Watch or the original iPhone, revolutionary as they may be, are a bit like “paid hardware betas”, as they miss some critical functionality found elsewhere because the developer decided to focus on, you know, revolutionising things and didn't have enough time to add those features (like, say, copy and paste and, rather more dramatically in the grand scheme of things, third-party apps [!!!]). Affinity Publisher, to me, seems like a proof-of-concept of sorts. It may work for a subset of prosumer users, and make them extremely happy.
My only fear is with what kind of PR Serif will get once ruthless reviewers get their teeth into the GM release, because let's not beat around the bush here: Publisher is way behind the competition than Photo or Designer ever were, even in their respective beta stages, for the very simple and unavoidable fact that DTP apps are much more complex than bitmap and vector editors (or much harder to get to a level of functionality that makes most people happy), because they are extremely dependent on workflows and automation, as you've just mentioned. incidentally, a cursory look at the forums reveals that besides master pages, the other two most requested features are GREP-like search (and styles) and anchored objects, and I'd say the absence of any of those features in isolation (especially master pages and anchored objects; GREP is arguably a power-user feature which even those who do have a need for it only do so occasionally) would be damning enough, and their combined absence would be utterly catastrophic from a PR, conventional and word-of-mouth marketing standpoint. I am adamant in my view that Serif is being lulled into a false sense of security by their past experience with Photo and Designer users…
Yes, people can make those decisions, and they may also revisit those decisions. But we shouldn't forget that Serif isn't putting out these apps to the world at large in complete isolation, and that first impressions matter, especially when it comes to impulse purchases and to the distinct possibility that there may be current Photo and Designer users who might not be paying attention to the forums or review sites, only to the Mac and iOS App Stores, and might end up sorely disappointed. It's already bad enough that many (if not most) Page Plus users are a bit mad at the fact that they will likely never get a first-party conversion tool for their old files; making CC switchers feel defrauded as well would basically alienate or otherwise irk the rest (and, by all accounts, the majority) of their potential future user base. If the guys at Serif can cut their losses, they should absolutely wait to get these two/three features right. And while I can appreciate that dependencies may be an issue… maybe they'll just have to live with it and rethink their roadmap accordingly. And yes, if they have to drop other less crucial features from the v.1.x roadmap, so be it.
Interesting angle. It's certainly one way to work around the issue. As for me, seeing how I work mostly in graphic and editorial design, that's really not an option. I frequently have to reopen old stuff and repurpose it… I am, however, very adept at redoing layouts. It's a bit of a PITA but, as long as the rest of the work is fairly automated, I'm good. Which is decidedly not Publisher's case. Otherwise, I'd already have repurposed some of my old layouts, “just in case” [my next commission(s) arrived in time of v.1.7.0 GM]. I guess maybe next year…? Two years from now? Who knows, really, because their roadmap is still not entirely clear. What I do know is that if I were to include the extra hours to get the same job done in Publisher, they would come out as more expensive as the CC subscription, and I'd probably have to redo them anyway once the final, proper functionality was in place; seeing how I can just use ID CS5 instead of either option, why would I even bother with any of that?
What also personally irks me is the fact that from the moment Serif releases Publisher in a grossly incomplete form (if that does indeed come to pass, and I'm seriously hoping it doesn't), I'll be, for the first time in years, “out of the loop” so to speak. I feel like I am a valuable member of this community, and would've liked to have given more useful feedback much, much sooner (in fact, I was given a rare, privileged chance to do so and wasn't up to the challenge for personal reasons), but I just can't bring myself up to be a paying guinea pig. Not even my slow-as-molasses Apple Watch Series 0 is as frustrating a piece of tech than… having to take 10x longer to do basic work tasks, even just in a strictly QA scenario as a beta-tester. Do you now see where I'm coming from?
I feel a bit duped by Serif, honestly, because Photo and Designer raised my expectations through the roof (as I've said here on the forums before, ironically enough, Serif's past success is also their biggest enemy, and the reasons are two-fold; it may induce hubris on their part and, as it just so happened with me, raise their users' expectations unrealistically), and the whole extended wait certainly didn't help. Now that we know the bigger picture, well… I'm no longer nervously and eagerly anticipating it; just sorely disappointed. I'm just asking the Serif team not to compound that with the added insult to injury of making me choose between paying for useless tech or being left even further out of the loop. I'd basically have to constantly peruse the forums, or run trial after trial on a guest account/virtual machine or some other stupid shenanigans just to check if the bare essentials were there and if it was finally worth the money, instead of just outright buying a useful app on day one, make use of it and update it in frequently to check if any more “nice-to-have” bells and whistles were added.

@jepho @JGD
Guys... in Germany it deep in the night right now and your conversation is so interesting I can't put my phone aside. 
The insights you share from different viewpoints are very valueable to me.

Well, I'm not saying that you can't do decent-looking booklets in your own laser or inkjet printer without having read 10 different typography manuals and/or completed a BFA in design. What I am saying, and you can't exactly counter that, is that Serif is indeed marketing Affinity squarely towards professionals. Not towards prosumers, and most certainly not towards amateurs. As per Affinity's “About” page: ( https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/about/ )
So, I am not just dreaming this up, now, am I? And, last time I checked, 16 bit CMYK, along with PANTONE spot colour support, etc., are precisely the kind of features which set their apps apart from “amateurish”/utopian packages with sometimes extremely dubious UX design like the F/OSS Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus, etc., and supposedly put them squarely on par with Adobe CC (yes, with some features missing, but mostly the bloat and cruft added over the years and not the bare essentials).
If they want that claim to be mostly an inspirational thing, fill their software front and centre with user-friendly tools (not necessarily wizards) which cater mostly to prosumers and reap massive financial rewards in the process, more power to them. But that shouldn't – nay, cannot, lest they just end up doing false advertisement, which is a big no-no in the UK – preclude them from staying true to their claim, by either adding those advanced tools in a more covert fashion (those multi-level partially expandable/collapsible palettes in Adobe CS/CC are a good example, and it seems those collapsible sub-sections, like the ones found in the Character and Paragraph Studio panels, are serving a similar purpose to a certain extent), or by outright splitting their apps between a Pro and an “Elements/Express” variant.
I certainly wouldn't mind paying between 50% and 100% more for Publisher if that meant that I got something along the “barely usable” to “near feature-parity with InDesign/QXP” spectrum; as it stands, right now, I can't even envision buying v.1.7.0 at all, because I will have no good use for it, and that was decidedly not the case when it came to even the earliest (and buggiest!) Designer and Photo betas. Yes, they were missing some very useful functionality, but I could still quickly whip up a logo or retouch a photo with them instead of having to launch my crusty ol' Ai or PS if I really wanted (and, in fact, I even used either the betas or some very early versions – as in pre-v.1.4.x, which, IIRC, was a pretty big overhaul – for production work, namely to make .PDF and .JPG assets to place into InDesign documents). And, as I've said many times here before, I'm not some exotic editorial designer; I do mostly rather mundane stuff like event programmes, really (do check my LinkedIn page to get a sense of it; simple as it may look, it would still be a pain to do in Publisher, as it has loads of narrow text columns, text decoration, floating linked elements, etc.).

Just my €0,02…

Agreed! Paying more is always an option and it may be that Serif have misread the audience of professionals at this point in the development of Publisher. I had not found any difficulties with using Photo or Designer and the softwares largely perform as expected. I don't mind that there are different sequences of actions or behaviours to achieve what I want. The acts of image editing and vector image creation are pretty well understood and minor differences between softwares are ultimately of little consequence. In photography, I can and will use any item that can be called a camera and I have no interest in the manufacturer or the format... I will always produce an image. Likewise, I can and will use any software (on a Mac) when it comes to producing a vector design or editing pixels. Naturally, I prefer to use software that does not require me to fight it to achieve simple things. I have even used GIMP which I dropped when I needed to edit 16bit images and the software could only handle 8bit images.  
The matter of using a single software to pull together all of the elements of any designed production in a layout program... such as a newspaper, magazine, technical publication, pamphlet or a book; requires the software to be capable for multiple levels of activity. Arranging the elements both freeform and constrained and outputting accurately placed items in a format understood by printing houses and including end to end colour management and permit all manner of text adjustments, ligatures, glyphs &c., is a simple overview. Yes, 16bit CMYK output and Pantone support for spot colours absolutely implies a professionally capable piece of software.
In Publisher beta as is, grids and frame handling do not yet seem ideal and master pages have already featured in our discussions. Possibly the beta version of Publisher was released rather too early. The calls for features that may appear (to the developers) as if all people request and want/need is a cheaper version of ID or QXP; in order to get out from under Adobe's subscription model heel or the oppressive pricing structures of professional layout software like QXP, may feel as if there has been a sustained attack on their efforts. Project management can be a nightmare filled with dependency networks and Gantt charts. Whichever point in the envisaged Publisher development cycle has already been reached for the current beta of Publisher, may dictate that it is not yet possible to add some features in the developer's current development timeline.
It is something of a mixed blessing to learn that certain facilities may not be added for a time (or even told that there is no intention to provide a facility discussed in the forums) but at least we should be able to decide whether the software is worth our time investment on the basis of what we know and can see and have tested. It is evident that Publisher beta misses several essential marks for a layout software and it remains to be seen how Serif addresses that particular fact. The beta suggestions and bug reports will help to refine the product but I can see why the development team may be reluctant to be sidetracked while the software is still effectively in a pre-release form of development.
I can relearn to work within limitations set by software and I do not have any old files that will require conversion or reworking. That is a rather long story but with image editing sales I was constantly receiving obscure requests many years after undertaking a commission. I decided to never store client files again. All of my images were sold complete with the copyright and the RAW files and the need for large costly storage and file handling software as well as dealing with copyright abuses; was removed in one fell swoop. I am happy to wait and see what the final Publisher product looks like. We all would like to make cost savings because we must defray our costs by charging the customer. Can we get more work by charging less than our competitors for doing the same work? Probably, so I am going to wait until the final product is released. I can see that the Publisher software will not suit people who have requirements which are not met by the current beta and for which the plans to provide the facilities needed are not in place.  

What Serif has implemented, Optical Margin Alignment, does work and it works properly. The samples in the Manual adjustment section, when the method is set to Manual, are just that, samples. You can add to them to your heart's content.
What Dave Harris has said is that Optical Kerning, ala InDesign, is not going to be implemented at this time, or maybe never. But that again is a separate issue from what your thread is all about.
As a test, I added my uppercase classes to a font I've designed for using the optical bounds OpenType Feature. If I were intending on actually implementing this feature in what will be the release version I would take also add in the appropriate lowercase character classes as well. The result when the Optical Margin Alignment is set to Font is in the screen shot below.

It works as advertised.
I have not made a final decision whether I will actually add this feature or not as the only software that can make use of it currently Affinity applications and perhaps one or two applications I won't use for production (like Scribus).
InDesign's implementation of Optical Margin Alignment (OMA) is ill conceived in both implementation and control (and in fact is not on by default). QuarkXPress' is superior, but, like APub's, requires more user input due to the fact font support is poorly represented and so I feel the Manual setting will be the most used. However, I have worked for many publishers, from small to large, and none of them have OMA as a house style. None. Most newspapers don't. While I have typeset some books with OMA, only one ever went to print with it on.
As regards Optical Kerning, with a decently kerned font, this setting is generally not even a good one to set. No matter how I am using type, ID makes decisions with its Optical Kerning I would never make. Small type can be crowded together, large type can be set too loose for my tastes. And that's kinda the point—we all most often see type different and would make different decisions. Again, here is where QXP shines as one can change the kerning pair values for a given font and so will always use the edited values for that font without ever actually editing the font. This is how this issue should be resolved. At least, in my opinion. Which is worth every penny you paid for it.
Mike

Again and again: Spacing within words is NOT what you call "optical margin alignment".
Heute sind "setzen", "Satz" und "Setzer" obsolet in ihrem ursprünglichen Sinn. An deren Stelle ist bezüglich Buchstabenabstände das digitale Kerning getreten, das vom Font-Designer in die font-files integriert wird. Schon im Bleisatz waren "Kegel" und "Fleisch" vom type-designer vorgegebene Größen ("beard", "bevelled feet", "shoulder" – dependent to the source of text), die durch den Setzer nur erweitert, nie verringert werden konnten. Daraus entstand z.B. der sogenannte "gesperrte" Satz, der oft als Beleidigung fürs typograhische Auge des Schriftgestalters galt.
Today, the german "setzen", "Satz" and "Setzer" are in their own sense. In their place, the digital kerning has stepped in terms of letter spacing, which is integrated by the Font Designer into the font files. Even in lead type-set, "Kegel" and "Fleisch" of the type designer were predetermined sizes (comp. "beard", "beveled feet", "shoulder" - depending on the text source), which are only augmented by the typesetter, never diminished. From this emerged the so-called "gesperrte" type setting, which was considered an insult to the typographical eye of the typeface designer.
You talk about no. 3 in the following pic:

 
Play around with a physical typewriter + so called monospaced fonts to get closer to this topic.

Your first point is an absolute with which I wholeheartedly agree. Its natural corollary is your second point and once again, I am in total agreement with you. The final point appears to be common sense but I don't believe the software industry has worked quite like that in the past. In years past I had attended an Adobe day where the CS2 suite of programs was launched. My software use included Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign along with Acrobat. My work was to produce stand alone photographic work, graphic design for logotypes and posters, tabloid newspaper production, corporate brochures, web page catalogue assembly, technical manuals and books. I was always, inter alia, a professional film photographer and I owned and used cameras that covered the whole gamut of film sizes and formats from 4x5inch down to sub miniature. My colleagues were all going digital and my first 6 megapixel professional digital camera cost me around £2,000 for the body only.  
I was keen to get an Adobe staff member's view on where the Photoshop aspect of CS Suite was going. This was in the light of Apple's Aperture software and its aspirations to become a highly regarded professional photographic production tool. I was told by Adobe staff that there were only about 100,000 professional photographer's globally and the market which was driving Photoshop development was the amateur photographer with his new found public accessibility of digital photography.
It was clear to me then that Adobe had little interest in the professional photographer's needs market and so it has proven to be the case. Amateur photographers can now access Photoshop and Lightroom CC plus 20GB of storage for under £10 per month while another £10 payment secures 1TB of storage. Smartphones now have far more megapixel resolution (by a factor of 3x) than my first professional dSLR. Adopting Lightroom digital image management and Photoshop digital image processing looks to be a no brainer for many amateur photographers. Very specific professional photographic tools such as the NIK plugins were purchased by Google and now they have languished, despite being really excellent tools. 
While professional photographers are charged more (if they are paying the Adobe CC rates shown earlier in the thread) it is the amateurs that provide the bulk of Adobe's photographically derived income. No surprise that Adobe wants to woo amateur photographers, in preference to their professional counterparts. I am really guessing here but my educated guess is that market numbers will win and dictate where the software developers will aim their products. The ability to print direct from a computer to really capable home printers is a significant factor which helps to drive the DTP software markets. I can print 300 dpi dye sublimation up to 12 x 8 inch in addition to high resolution A4 colour laser output. 
There is no need for the user to be familiar with graphic design tenets or computer to plate printing methods when simplified DTP software is readily and cheaply available. To brand a piece of software as 'professional' usually implies a massive hike in price in return for a few obscure facilities that only a professional would want. This, in my view, is the precise area where the serif Affinity software must not inhabit. I welcome the simplicity of software and the underlying abilities to carry out professional work. Where the sales dictate the market, it remains to be seen whether Serif can overcome the temptation to make vast numbers of amateur sales and neglect the needs of publishing professionals. 
 

Your first point is an absolute with which I wholeheartedly agree. Its natural corollary is your second point and once again, I am in total agreement with you. The final point appears to be common sense but I don't believe the software industry has worked quite like that in the past. In years past I had attended an Adobe day where the CS2 suite of programs was launched. My software use included Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign along with Acrobat. My work was to produce stand alone photographic work, graphic design for logotypes and posters, tabloid newspaper production, corporate brochures, web page catalogue assembly, technical manuals and books. I was always, inter alia, a professional film photographer and I owned and used cameras that covered the whole gamut of film sizes and formats from 4x5inch down to sub miniature. My colleagues were all going digital and my first 6 megapixel professional digital camera cost me around £2,000 for the body only.  
I was keen to get an Adobe staff member's view on where the Photoshop aspect of CS Suite was going. This was in the light of Apple's Aperture software and its aspirations to become a highly regarded professional photographic production tool. I was told by Adobe staff that there were only about 100,000 professional photographer's globally and the market which was driving Photoshop development was the amateur photographer with his new found public accessibility of digital photography.
It was clear to me then that Adobe had little interest in the professional photographer's needs market and so it has proven to be the case. Amateur photographers can now access Photoshop and Lightroom CC plus 20GB of storage for under £10 per month while another £10 payment secures 1TB of storage. Smartphones now have far more megapixel resolution (by a factor of 3x) than my first professional dSLR. Adopting Lightroom digital image management and Photoshop digital image processing looks to be a no brainer for many amateur photographers. Very specific professional photographic tools such as the NIK plugins were purchased by Google and now they have languished, despite being really excellent tools. 
While professional photographers are charged more (if they are paying the Adobe CC rates shown earlier in the thread) it is the amateurs that provide the bulk of Adobe's photographically derived income. No surprise that Adobe wants to woo amateur photographers, in preference to their professional counterparts. I am really guessing here but my educated guess is that market numbers will win and dictate where the software developers will aim their products. The ability to print direct from a computer to really capable home printers is a significant factor which helps to drive the DTP software markets. I can print 300 dpi dye sublimation up to 12 x 8 inch in addition to high resolution A4 colour laser output. 
There is no need for the user to be familiar with graphic design tenets or computer to plate printing methods when simplified DTP software is readily and cheaply available. To brand a piece of software as 'professional' usually implies a massive hike in price in return for a few obscure facilities that only a professional would want. This, in my view, is the precise area where the serif Affinity software must not inhabit. I welcome the simplicity of software and the underlying abilities to carry out professional work. Where the sales dictate the market, it remains to be seen whether Serif can overcome the temptation to make vast numbers of amateur sales and neglect the needs of publishing professionals. 
 

Yes, they are, indeed. But if you can't use them for content holders (i.e. frames), they are next to useless when it comes to [controlled] automation (which Publisher seems to want to do it in its own alternative and limited way by automatically creating text frames outside of the masters). That's the entire point of my rant(s).
The fact that you can have your guidelines in your master pages only automates half of the process. If you still have to create your text frames by hand, because you can't flow stuff into the frames you created inside of your master pages, naïvely thinking you could use them, and do it more than 600 times because your layout is too complex for automatic frame creation, suddenly you're better off paying for a CC subscription.
Being able to place content into master page objects is so, so, so extremely basic that not having it is a non-starter. Maybe it's hard to get the entire ancillary stuff (like how and where to allow users to manually override objects, like I've mentioned) right and in an elegant fashion, but that should be Serif's #1 priority right now. Period. It's better to have an app that works 100% in manual mode, than an app that tries to do the work for you but doesn't allow you to do things manually at all. Especially an app marketed to CC switchers.
Prosumers, i.e. aspirational users, should be an extra, even if they make up the biggest swath of the market; if actual professionals, the influencers in the equation, eschew it, Affinity will just devolve into Corel Graphics Suite v2 or Serif Plus v2 all over again (as in, that versatile but niche thing – mostly at the low end of the market – Adobe users frown upon), instead of becoming Macromedia MX v2 (what we all want it to be, I'm guessing; a serious and beloved contender that will fill the void left by Adobe's monopolistic practices). Affinity is just doing a balancing act right now, and it can go both ways. A grossly incomplete Publisher and the scathing reviews that will ensue may just tip it over to the wrong side.

Yes, I get that the conventions with which we are familiar and have come to use and like are best left untouched. Looking a little deeper; we can see that conventions are merely those methods that are included with the software that has become flavour of the month or year. Some of those conventions (e.g. Photoshop mediated) were turned upside down with the arrival of Aperture. It was a fantastic software that was completely transparent to old fashioned film photographers like me and completely logical in its use. It soon became less popular with digital photographers who demanded curves adjustments because they had no understanding of how the software was designed or how film worked. Sadly, that software is no longer supported but I have never used such an easy and speedy bitmap editor with great image colour management.
The granularity of version 1 or version 2 software is never completely satisfactory. It takes many iterations to achieve a satisfactory level of fine control.  I like to see all numbers available to three significant decimal places but that level of fine adjustment is not necessary in many tasks. Arguably; one could probably manage with integers in a well-designed software package. Legacy beset software tends to take small evolutionary steps to overall improvements while new softwares can be as revolutionary as they like. I use Adobe's Acrobat a great deal and as yet,  I have not found anything to compete with it. There are plenty of PDF file editors around but none with the rather comprehensive and fine control of Acrobat. Much of what Acrobat can achieve could be described as convention but it is the overall reign of the software that dictates what features become an accepted convention.
Supporting Serif and Affinity software products and feeding back suggestions is the one way in which we can contribute to the software offered and its overall development. It is probably inevitable that new developments will be compared with existing developments. What seems to me to be very odd are the many loud calls to make any new software just like the old software. q.v. my reference to Aperture above. Progress derives from examining current methods and then making improvements in methods and capabilities. I may not know where the journey will end but for me it will always be exciting. The serious business of making money does not get in the way of finding new and interesting ways to accomplish repetitive tasks which result in better endpoints. YMMV 

I understand that it may be the only choice for YOU.
Facts: $49 x 12 = $588 pa.
In the UK the same monthly paid fee is £49.94 which equates to $63.25 monthly and totals $759 at current exchange rates. This is $171 more than the US rate. Enough for almost 3 months additional subscription. Why does Adobe indulge in this price gouging when it costs no extra to deliver software globally via the internet?
The next monthly fee includes membership of Adobe Stock at £73.93 per month. This the equivalent of $93.63 per month and totals $1,123.56 annually. Of course only the first ten images are included in that stock fee component. 
The costs of Adobe Stock can be chosen from the following scale depending on your needs...
£19.99 ($25.32) £47.99 ($60.78) £99.99 ($126.63) or £119.99 ($151.96)
At the current exchange rates you could pay an additional annual fee of $303.84 up to an eye watering $1823.52 per annum. So if I wanted the best package including Adobe Stock, I would need to find the sum of $2582.52 as rental for the software and the use of Adobe Stock, every year! 
Adobe is very definitely NOT the only choice. YMMV. 

Yes, up to a point you may be correct. It is clear that software which falls into the category of 'professional software' has to be capable of fulfilling tasks which would not fall within the scope of amateur work. i.e. Photoshop Elements does not compete with Photoshop if you want to create CMYK separations. How would you deal with dot gain, screen angles or traps and knock outs with software intended for amateur uses?  Grids are likely to be found in professional DTP software but not in less well specified applications. DTP of course was known as CTP before DTP supposedly freed everyone from the constraints of printing. Frame, PageMaker, Quark Express, InDesign were softwares that grew from original CTP applications like Impression on an Archimedes computer. 
Everyone and their brother could then produce a Parish magazine from home. We have all seen the amateur 16 page monochromatic productions produced on 80gsm coloured paper that uses 70 different fonts. If you were a local letterpress/offset litho printer, you probably could not afford to own 70 families of typefaces in different sizes and weights. Amateur software also does not address issues for the designer who wanted to produce long runs of high quality documents by the photogravure printing process, for example. 
Interestingly, despite being introduced in the mid 90s, Hexachrome printing requires Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator software to adopt and use plugins like Pantone's Hexware, Heximage and Hexvector in order to be Hexachrome aware. My point here is that even the industry 800lb gorillas of today are somewhat less capable than they could be. One software solution will not be the answer to every user's problems. I have always kept many different bitmap editors and utilities on hand for file conversions and ease of use. Likewise with design and publishing softwares.
Not wanting to be locked into a one size (from one manufacturer) fits everything philosophy was my rationale for owning many different pieces of software. After many years of Photoshop (v2.0 onwards) I got sucked into the Adobe CS nightmare with version one and somehow realised it was the beginning of the end. The assurances and promises from Adobe that prices would stay reasonable were quickly forgotten (shades of QXP from its position of market superiority?) and it seemed as if the updates broke more than they fixed. I skipped versions so that I could keep essential funds to myself rather than exchange more cash for doubtful 'features'. Adobe CC has been a bit of a nightmare and truthfully, was the final straw.
I have learned to do what I need to do in Affinity products. Photo does all that I need from a bitmap editor. Designer is a delight to use and shows Illustrator the way forward. Publisher looks set to be a killer program and all Affinity software is priced so that users do not need to have a mortgage to purchase it; nor is the software on some endless merry-go-round of paying the piper. I think it is likely that the Affinity suite will be purchased by many users rather than pirated because it represents excellent value for money. There has been some commentary from professionals who want the Affinity products to work like Adobe products. Learning some new methods may not be a bad thing, especially when it means that the code is lean, purpose built  and not beset with legacy issues.
Brutal honesty is a double-edged sword and cuts in both directions. Living in the past and reliving old glories is less than helpful. Who remembers what InDesign was like when it first appeared? It was not the perfect software that some reporters would have us old dogs believe. I would say that is better to learn some new tricks and support the developers who want us to have better software at a reasonable price.
0.2₵ 

Yes, up to a point you may be correct. It is clear that software which falls into the category of 'professional software' has to be capable of fulfilling tasks which would not fall within the scope of amateur work. i.e. Photoshop Elements does not compete with Photoshop if you want to create CMYK separations. How would you deal with dot gain, screen angles or traps and knock outs with software intended for amateur uses?  Grids are likely to be found in professional DTP software but not in less well specified applications. DTP of course was known as CTP before DTP supposedly freed everyone from the constraints of printing. Frame, PageMaker, Quark Express, InDesign were softwares that grew from original CTP applications like Impression on an Archimedes computer. 
Everyone and their brother could then produce a Parish magazine from home. We have all seen the amateur 16 page monochromatic productions produced on 80gsm coloured paper that uses 70 different fonts. If you were a local letterpress/offset litho printer, you probably could not afford to own 70 families of typefaces in different sizes and weights. Amateur software also does not address issues for the designer who wanted to produce long runs of high quality documents by the photogravure printing process, for example. 
Interestingly, despite being introduced in the mid 90s, Hexachrome printing requires Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator software to adopt and use plugins like Pantone's Hexware, Heximage and Hexvector in order to be Hexachrome aware. My point here is that even the industry 800lb gorillas of today are somewhat less capable than they could be. One software solution will not be the answer to every user's problems. I have always kept many different bitmap editors and utilities on hand for file conversions and ease of use. Likewise with design and publishing softwares.
Not wanting to be locked into a one size (from one manufacturer) fits everything philosophy was my rationale for owning many different pieces of software. After many years of Photoshop (v2.0 onwards) I got sucked into the Adobe CS nightmare with version one and somehow realised it was the beginning of the end. The assurances and promises from Adobe that prices would stay reasonable were quickly forgotten (shades of QXP from its position of market superiority?) and it seemed as if the updates broke more than they fixed. I skipped versions so that I could keep essential funds to myself rather than exchange more cash for doubtful 'features'. Adobe CC has been a bit of a nightmare and truthfully, was the final straw.
I have learned to do what I need to do in Affinity products. Photo does all that I need from a bitmap editor. Designer is a delight to use and shows Illustrator the way forward. Publisher looks set to be a killer program and all Affinity software is priced so that users do not need to have a mortgage to purchase it; nor is the software on some endless merry-go-round of paying the piper. I think it is likely that the Affinity suite will be purchased by many users rather than pirated because it represents excellent value for money. There has been some commentary from professionals who want the Affinity products to work like Adobe products. Learning some new methods may not be a bad thing, especially when it means that the code is lean, purpose built  and not beset with legacy issues.
Brutal honesty is a double-edged sword and cuts in both directions. Living in the past and reliving old glories is less than helpful. Who remembers what InDesign was like when it first appeared? It was not the perfect software that some reporters would have us old dogs believe. I would say that is better to learn some new tricks and support the developers who want us to have better software at a reasonable price.
0.2₵ 

The important thing to get right is where does text/content come from and where does it go to. QuarkXPress has (had? I stopped using it at v.6) these “to” and “from” source and destination linking boxes in the corners of master pages, which are the epitome of doing things “by hand”, so to speak.
Back when I started using it, InDesign surprised me in the way it handles it automagically. You only have to link frames across your spread, and the text otherwise automatically flows from the last column in the spread to the first column in the next page, regardless of it being a different master, a manually set up page, or whatever; the same goes for spreads with mixed masters, IIRC. And when you apply a different master to a page already populated with content, the content is also preserved but reflows into that master, if I'm not mistaken. Conceptually, it messes a bit with my way of doing things, but much like Smart Guides (before which I'd just create a crapload of guidelines and make my vector work in Freehand and Illustrator extremely hard to navigate), in practice it works extremely well.
I honestly never did any layout with two different tracks of text (as in, say, a fully bilingual layout), so I'm not entirely sure how you'd do one in either InDesign or Quark. But I'm sure they already solved that issue, and it's one of those things where Serif devs must have the humility of taking a page from their book (ha! ) if they got it right and did it elegantly enough. No matter how you slice it, if Publisher is to be taken seriously by professionals, it must be usable in those scenarios, and by “usable” I mean quick and functional. Of course I could redo most, if not all, of my past work in Publisher and have it print beautifully. It's just that I'd want to gouge my own eyeballs out and bite my own hands off in the end of the process.