I do remember wondering why I kept beating myself up trying to learn Photoshop.

Because PS offers greater precision, flexibility and control?

A lot of the online editing suites have nifty effects but felt rather gimmicky and unwieldy to me overall; ipiccy was the one I could jump into most easily and hit the ground running.

can't give it up now. It has clipping masks!

I'm sure once I get into it I'll feel the same. BTW, what are clipping masks vs ordinary masks? I tried looking it up on line but it didn't make sense to me.