PS is a professional-grade image editing program. If you want to create an effect or style, yet are unable to because you lack the knowledge due to relying on plugins, and thus never investigated the manual methods, you aren't a professional.
Thats the problem with the design industry. Every man and his dog with a copy of PS thinks they are a designer. I had this issue with a client a few months back, he checked out some prices from some "designers" in India, and then asked me if I could match it. It was ridiculously low, and I wouldn't even design someone an avatar for the price he quoted.
I told him that my services were worth the money for the after-service benefits alone, such as being able to download pdfs of his business card, print banner, and web banner anywhere in the world from my cloud storage account without needing to contact me. Also, if he wants revisions done to his existing designs, I will have the working files so he doesn't have to pay for them to be designed again from scratch.
Good luck getting replacement files and advice on good local printers from some dodgy outfit which does logos for $100. If you lose the first image/working file they give you, tough luck. You have to pay them to start again in most cases.
Now there's nothing wrong with PS being a hobby. Thats how I started out. It was a hobby for a few years, then it became so all-consuming that I made it a career. Ultimately, professionals may use plugins, maybe even semi-regularly, but they don't RELY on them as their only means of achieving an effect.
PS: There's absolutely nothing wrong with not being a professional designer/photographer. Many passionate hobbyists contribute wonderfully to the collective design/photography community, but its the work practice which separates hobbyist from professional in most cases.
