I'm an Aperture guy. Started using it before Lightroom was out, and with 21,898 photos in the collection (125GB) I'm still well-organized and pleased with the software. I can do all the touch-up (mainly exposure, white balance, shadows/highlights, but sometimes more complicated stuff and even the rare red-eye removal) I need within it, and since I committed myself to rating and tagging my photos as I imported them, I can actually find things and work well in the environment. I've got a few plugins for esoteric stuff, such as correcting fisheye shots. It is very rare that I have to export an image to an external editor (such as Photoshop). Most commonly I do so just for for blurring out license plates, and I think there's a way in the new version of Aperture to use either spot-and-patch or the retouch tool for that. Even if I get into HDR, there are a few different plugins I can use to perform that workflow right within Aperture instead of making the loop through an external editor.
It's all about workflow. I keep my raw images as references on a portable drive, while my metadata library is on my laptop. That way I can import from the camera, let Aperture create working previews, disconnect the drive, and easily work on the laptop alone tagging, rating, captioning, and marking for later adjustments. When I'm ready, I reattach the drive, perform any adjustments, and export.
