I wouldn’t characterize Adobe as continuously picking your pocket. Adobe Creative Cloud provides access to every piece of software in the catalog for about $60/month. It’s the best deal in the history of software considering the majority are professional industry standards. I believe, however, they have only 2 subscription packages; $20/mo. for a LR/PS package and; $60/mo. for everything.
I started on Adobe Premiere over 20 years ago, also used FCP7 and FCPX. I currently use Resolve Studio 16, but I can see the loyalty to Premiere & AfterEffects. Motion graphics in Resolve using Fusion I still haven’t figured out.
Excepting the motion graphics issue, the free version of Resolve makes a lot of sense. The node-based color grading has a learning curve, but it was considered one of the best even before BMD added the editing component. Non-linear Editing In Resolve is similar to Premiere, whereas FCPX is not. FCPX is very capable and has motion graphics built in, but editing feels quite different than all other NLE’s. I use it for adding special effects from the huge library of pixel film studios.
As far as my comment about Adobe "picking my pocket", I have one major beef: The Photoshop(CS3) software that I
PURCHASED, WITHOUT STATED LIMITATION OR EXPIRATION can no longer be activated- in spite of the fact that is it is still fully functional on all Windows OS systems and computers! As a mostly retired professional photographer who found there is nothing in the current versions of Photoshop that I couldn't do in CS3, in spite of some of the newfangled automation, unlike when I was using it every day, all day, I resent having to pay for upgrades when I don't need them (or want them). I pay the same whether I use it one day per month or every day-- or no days. I guess you could (metaphorically) put me in the "pro-choice" category. FWIW, I find the later versions of Photoshop slower and clumsier than older versions, unsuitable for my older computers that don't have high-RAM accelerated graphics cards and are still running Intel Duo processors. The other thing that I've not seen mentioned is that Adobe can raise their prices at will, making the choice to pay up binary; eat it or leave.... [EDIT]... One more thing... I find Lightroom clumsy and there are other (IMO) better alternatives to LR. I suppose that goes back to my original statement that you have a learning curve on any software. Early days of LR just sucked.
I am thrilled to have a program like Davinci Resolve to learn on FOR FREE. It has motivated me to do more flying and more videos in general. I am currently plotting my cash flow as I intend to pay the $300 for the studio version, primarily for the GPU acceleration, and will take the other features as a bonus gift.
Re: Node based color grading....
I've learned to think about nodes much like layers in Photoshop. Nodes that come later are like layers on top. If it makes it easier, you can arrange the nodes vertically rather than horizontally to mimic layers. But the nodes are more complex because you can merge nodes at any point, so it's like 3 dimensional layers. You can color grade on one node, or use several. Each node can be dialed down for it's affect, much like opacity in layers. The thing is that success in color grading is largely knowing what you want to achieve before setting out to do it. The "how" then becomes largely intuitive once you have the concept of how it works in your head. I think coming to Davinci Resolve with no routines from other editors it's easier to learn than if you have to shift gears from something else. JMO
As far as motion graphics in Fusion, yeah, it's more complicated, largely I think because of the power, but also because it lacks any kind of automation in this regard. I think the key is to understand how keyframes work in Davinci and aren't innately intuitive and I've found to be where the initial complexity resides in this program. Fusion does have the steepest learning curve, but IMO is the least important thing to learn for those (like me) just getting into video editing. I think learning this module is where one transcends after mastering the basics. I'm certainly not there yet, but will be some day soon, I hope.