cowboy X says:
Most "press monkeys" I've encountered are slightly more tech-savvy than a typical plumber (no offense to plumbers). To these guys, PDFs are fancy-pants new-fangled city-folk technology.

oh I don't know about that. Three years ago when I started at my current company, half the publications took Film and Matchprint only. I now send out ads to about 20 or so publications a month, NOT a single one of them take veloxs or film. PDF or EPS, not even native Quark docs because of font conflicts from different type house vendors.

Adolph has it. This is a low margin business... capital investments are huge. I don't know about those illustrator 7 eps thing, I import illustrator 10 eps into Quark all the time... but I'm straying.

I do run quark 5 at home, its crap... unless you are into XML and cross purposing artwork constantly. I open up Indesign and set Quark keyboard shortcuts, everyone is happy.