simplyshaman allows as how he's "seen some pretty kickass
PowerPoint slide presentations." No doubt true, BUT...

PowerPoint has been part of MS Office for how many years? But if
you want tables, use Word or Excel and import them or struggle
with PowerPoint's lame version. Word has had style sheets
forever. PowerPoint? Next case! Even something as simple as
tabs are a struggle. You can make the hidden characters visible.

Graphs? You can do all kinds of cool stuff, 3-D, etc. But talk to
the purists and they'll tell you that graphs can be made to
distort reality very easily. Simple graphs without all the frou-frou
stuff convey information much more accurately.

Luckily, I haven't had to use it for some time, so maybe they've
improved its stability. Aside from the usual "save early and
often" that applies to any program, I found it essential with
PowerPoint. The first warning used to come when you found it
grinding more and more slowly: Beware! Crash is imminent, with
loss of work!

I'll try to restrain myself and leave it at that. My original point
was that better programs died because they stood by themselves
and had to be priced accordingly. By being bundled as
essentially a freebie in MS Office, Microsoft used predatory
tactics to drive the competition out of business. An inferior
product remains, but one which is indeed capable of "kickass
presentations" in the hands of someone sufficiently skilled - and
patient with a feature-poor product.