A good topic and one that has lots of answers, I am sure we will get lots here... I always use Raw for much the same reasons as Joe if you intend to sell your work many agents and printers dont like any manipulations whatsoever.. Photography is an Art form, so is the wonderful efforts of the skilled postworker, and many a mundane image can be transformed.. And there is also a good market for these images as well, more often as fineart prints

Danny O'Byrne  http://www.digitalartzone.co.uk/

"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice" Eliott Erwitt