We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Granted Elements is cheaper than Lightroom, but it is an image manipulation tool while Lightroom is a photographer's tool. For a beginner, I would say that the ability to uplaod and convert your photos in one step, catalgue them all, add key words and manage your files and then also do minor adjustments and then print them out is all you need. Lightroom does it all. Elements and CS3 are both hugely powerful tools but I would argue that in fact they offer too much of the wrong thing for a beginner in Photography. Starting out with Lightroom will allow any beginner to learn how to adjust their photos to get the most out of them.

After that you're in the realms of image manipulation which many photographers never even want to venture into. Certainly, I could list on one hand the number of times I've used layers.