Heck, I got into Flash animation on Newgrounds just because I saw too many people killing Pikachu in Flashes, and I was determined to turn the tables around.

Boy did I ever! Here Pikachu kills butt-loads of Newgrounds characters instead! It's old (and I can make something MUCH better than this now), but it's classic. No regrets on this one. XD

I haven't made Flash animations for a long time because one, it's a dying sensation and two, they take an ENORMOUS amount of time to make. Given, the end result can be amazing, but ugh, it's crazy amounts of time and work.

I'm glad people really like the PSG, though. Maybe someday soon I'll host another one. They do require me to be pretty darn active and without Tazz, there isn't as much support for it, but we'll see.

With Photoshop, GAH! You NEED to know the ins and outs of layers for that. With my current banner, there's a whopping 14 layers in the primary banner, and then another three in the secondary finalized version (the way I make it look 3D-ish plate with the glow plasma-like effects in the background). I mean heck, one of the very first things I do when making a new banner is just create a bunch of layers for later, even if I don't think I'll need them.

And CS3's not bad, you'll be just fine with that one for a while. I used to be using CS and did just fine with that one for quite a long time before I got CS6 for Christmas.