In a post complaining about Ubuntu's dropping of Gimp from the general distro, I ran across this awesome counter-argument:

If saving space on the disk is the major issue, why not replace OpenOffice.org with equivalent software such as Abiword and Gnumeric ? After all, how many general users of Linux (or Windows for that matter) use a word processor or spread sheet program? And OpenOffice.org occupies far more space than GIMP.

Seriously? How many people use a word processor or spreadsheet? You might think spreadsheets are business only, unless you start looking at various small communities (like local golf leagues) that use them a lot. Talk about out of touch.

Now, I use Gimp, and, while the UI is less than intuitive, I can find my way around it for my limited uses. However, I simply can't imagine any general user trying to edit photos (or anything else) in it. For most people, the built in functions (of Preview on the Mac, for instance) are as much as they'll ever need - rotate, crop, lighten/darken. For that, Gimp isn't just overkill, it's absurd.