Acrobat Professional + Scanner > Useful for what?

Hi folks, I've got a bundled copy of Acrobat 8 with my new Fujitsu scanner for my Mac. My experience with Adobe products has been poor at best. Every version on Windows of Acrobat reader has spammed me with patents and a splash screen, is slow, destroys the toolbars in MS office applications with the horrid PDF macros and don't work nearly as fast as cute PDF / alternatives. I now use (when forced to use windows) Foxit reader where ever possible.

But - now that I have a copy of Acrobat Professional - I find myself asking 1) Is it as bad as the all the acrobat reader versions 2) What can it be used for that is useful? (I save documents as PDF's from most applications etc)

Thanks,