Caught in the Adobe information labyrinth and unable to find my way out

Question

I am a native English speaker and live in France. (Already, I prefer English but in Adobe's zeal for optimization, they impose the use of French, or an additional ten minutes of research time to find how and where to customize the language interface.)
Anyway...
Yesterday I purchased a copy of Photoshop elements 13 because i needed a photo handling and resizing tool that offered a minimum of layering options. The retailer had no idea what he was selling so that the entire discussion finally settled around the question of price.
On the assumption that I was buying some part of Photoshop functionality I agreed to spend 100€ to purchase the software via a "carte de telechargement du Logiciel" (a plastic card with a serial number that leads to a product license.)
First off, this morning I found that the webpage handling these serial numbers (www.adobe.com/go/getserial) returns a 404 error, does not work!  Then I found that for me to download and install Elements 13 I would have to buy a new machine, incidentally, a machine with a minimum processing equivalent to or below what I am currently using (a Dell Inspiron Duo-core with 2GB of live memory) running a Vista platform (perfectly adapted to my needs). One might think Abode was promote sales of Windows 7 and 8?
At this point I realize I am caught in an information maze (yes, the labyrinth metaphor) with 9 open Adobe tabs in my Chrome browser (including this one), and no earthly idea where to find the basic services I was looking for (layering functionality with photo resizing capabilities). So I look for a contact. I find approximately what I am looking for and "start a discussion" on the support forum.
The fact is I am looking for basic functionality, not space age technology: again, layering functionality with photo resizing capabilities. I do not know whether the Photoshop Elements 13 serial number I purchased for 100€ does what I hope it will do, and I find I need to buy a new machine to even attempt at finding my own answer.
My question to forum contributors:
1) is there a work-around to the minimum site requirements? (Can you even appreciate the kafkaesque absurdity of your reading my machine metadata and deciding for me that I cannot run your latest version because "you no longer support it", even if my machine meets your minimum requirement?
2) Can I purchase and download a basic version of Photoshop for personal, non-professional use? The version I learned photoshop on was V7.0. This was more than satisfactory. Even the Crerative Suite versions (at least up to CS3) were accessible. Can I purchase an older version for personal use?
3) why hasn't anybody figured out that there are far more everyday applications and practitioners than there are power users? Why haven't the adapts at "versioning" figured out and adapted a version in the 100 to 150€ range, rather than focus on "milking" the market as Adobe always (always!) has. Perhaps Adobe  has finally achieved the market power it has always sought, and has, in fact, outgrown their social utility.
Thank-you.
Peter Gillespie
(a modest user living in the south of France... and working in English!!!)

Answer 1

3) why hasn't anybody figured out that there are far more everyday applications and practitioners than there are power users?
Most "everyday practitioners" have better computers than some "power users"... You know, some reputable high-profile photographers working on really old Macs whereas some kids have high-performance (gaming) machines. Not a good argument IMO.
a machine with a minimum processing equivalent to or below what I am currently using (a Dell Inspiron Duo-core with 2GB of live memory) running a Vista platform (perfectly adapted to my needs). One might think Abode was promote sales of Windows 7 and 8?
Not supporting Vista is not because Adobe wants Microsoft to sell more Win 7/8 licenses, it's for hard practical reasons - programming tools and compilers change and some stuff is simply no longer supported. Conversely, third-party vendors have long stopped supporting Vista, so what would Adobe do when an app has specific graphics requirements and no fix to driver problems would even be possible? Again, it simply makes zero sense for a million quite rational and objective reasons. That being the case, those same hard facts prevent bypassing the minimum requirements - you cannot expect the program to run on your old processor when e.g. there may be a specific requirement due to some system DLL only existing for newer processors. Contemporary operating systems are full of such hidden dependencies. Also let's face it - your machine was not/ would not have been particularly powerful even 7 years ago when Vista was new.
As for your specific issues: You can always try to find a used PS license of an older version and run the license transfer. In fact you might even still find unopened retail packages of PSE 10 or 11 somewhere perfectly legally. Similarly, you could possibly find e.g. a heavily discounted older version of Corel Photopaint, buy PD Paint for 30 bucks or some other shareware software and ultimately GIMP is totally free and probably would run on Vista still.
Mylenium