Is Aperture 2.0 for the "Rest of Us" (Middle of the Road Photographers)?

I've never spent more than $100 on any single photo editor software. I've used JASC PaintShop Pro for many years on the Windows side. I pay a reasonable (usually in the $40 to $60 range) every couple of years to upgrade it. I also use the free Paint.net app on Windows. I used the Open Source SeaShore editor on my Mac until I upgraded to Leopard and it started to crash a lot. I used PhotoShop Elements 4 on my old G4-based Mac mini. But, it was was too sluggish on an Intel-based MacBook running in Rosetta emulation mode. However, Pixelator runs fine fand fast. So, I've been using that for the last couple of weeks.

When Apple announced Aperture 2 yesterday, the thing that most interested me was the price drop to US$199. That's more than I ever paid for a photo editor and more than twice what PhotoShop Elements 6 will be when it is released for the Mac. But, I'm very interested in learning more about Aperture 2 to see if it would be a useful tool for a middle-of-the-road digital photography hobbyist like me. So, I'll be following the blog posts over at the O'Reilly Media Inside Aperture blog very carefully as I try to figure out whether or not to buy Aperture 2 for myself.