Somehow I always end up disliking the big guys, the bullies, the monoliths, the hegemonies, and Microsoft. Put Adobe in there too (and the New York Yankees, RIAA, DRM, the Republican Party, American foreign policy, Anheuser-Busch, Fox News.., but I grow tired).

Having said that, I use the full version of Adobe a lot, mostly because I need to create, edit and work with interactive forms. The version I use "Professional" now costs $449. "Standard," which only costs $299 won't let you create or edit the interactive forms, but it does allow you to rearrange and combine documents.

For people who only need to create PDF documents I recommend PDF995 free, or $9.95 to get rid of their ads), or CutePDF Writer (free with no ads).

For people who need to fill out and save interactive forms (Adobe has crippled the ability to save form data in Adobe Reader.) I recommend CutePDF Form Filler (free trial version, $29.95 full version) or, especially, Foxit Reader (free to non-profits and for individual use and very good software).

For people who need to do minimal editing, pdfedit995 works pretty well and allows you to combine documents and extract pages. It is also free (or $9.95 without ads). Both PDF995 products (and a third) are subject to the GNU General Public License.

So far, I've used all of these, including Anheuser-Busch and Fox News (although not recently).

My recommendation, though, would be to try CutePDF Professional (free trial, $49.95 introductory offer) and see if it meets your needs. It looks pretty good and feature full. I'd love to hear from someone who used it.

Foxit PDF Editor also has the same features, and perhaps more. It costs $99 and is available in a trial version that watermarks your files with a little "created by Foxit PDF Edit" stamp, but would be good for trying it out.