Along about the time digital film output became feasible, I took a sales job with a large color house and was at one point selling about $100K per month in film and proofs, plus selling Scitex Visionary ... remember that, lol? It was a nice living for a while, then cheaper RIPs and imagesetters started taking over. That color house had to move both upstream into creative and photography, and downstream into printing, to survive. My former employer and longtime vendor is now a competitor. InDesign and a PDF workflow is nice, isn't it?
Yeah, Adobe's products have certainly made our life easier for us!
I remember when a RIPper was $100,000, now you can buy a little RIP box to stick on a Canon or Docutech and you've got what five years ago took film and a pre-press house!
See ya',
Ed