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And what if your plugin corrupts, or your serial number wrongly reads as invalid? What if you can't get hold if that PS person? Unless you can solve it quickly (most plugin companies won't get back to you the same day) you're screwed.

Also you are looking at this from the perspective of a photographer. Most photographers I know are already familiar with manual techniques they use regularly, and don't do heavy post work in most cases anyway, so most of them don't use plugins. I'm looking at this as a designer. My point was that a lot of the plugin effects are of a lower quality than manual effects.

If a plugin has equal quality in its results as a manual technique, I see no harm in using it, but relying on it so much that you forget how to do it manually is a disaster waiting to happen if you to a lot of high volume post work. If the plugin doesn't work for whatever reason, clients don't want to hear about it, they'll just remember that you're the guy who couldn't pull off the effect they wanted, despite claiming to be a professional.

There are all kinds of situations you can find yourself in at work. Sometimes you can't always do your work in ideal situations with all your gear, but if you can work your magic on any machine with Photoshop sans plugins, then you're covered for 99.99% of unforseeable problems.