After considering some of the comments I've had on forum posts on what I should update, I think its probably time to get my own copy of Adobe's art tools. From what I've researched on Adobe's FAQ page it looks like Adobe are cool with their education software being used eventually for commercial purchases, so it looks like it's a decent investment while I still qualify for education pricing. The A$800 dollars charged for the education version of the suite is not cheap by any means, but it's not too bad a price to have a full suite to learn with if I can continue to use it for paid work later on.
More on Going software shopping (over at trazoi.net)