Lightroom model of photographer's work life?

Question

It seems to me that the makers of Lightroom assume that only the photographer is going to ever touch the files, and that they will sit down at one session after shooting and do EVERYTHING they ever would do to that file?
I don't know about commercial shooters or wildlife/stock shooters, never been one.
But for a standard portrait studio workflow, I cannot make sense of how to use lightroom.
Uploading and renaming files ... jeez folks, I have too much to do already, that is a STAFF function. Neither my wife nor I have time to do that! And I cannot see why I want LR putting my images into a library or doing any of the moving things around it would like to do.
I had hoped to use this for doing an initial corrections pass because of the way it is supposed to work on both raw and jpeg simultaneously. Especially for weddings, where we shoot both formats from 3 different cameras. And some portrait jobs have both raw and jpeg too. If there are raw files I'd do a very quick conversion batching as many as possible for the small sales jpegs I'm after here.
But after the initial run through the files, the work would go to staff to do at another time. The staff will edit, do the sales, and transfer the folder to the computer drive where the retoucher looks for work to do. If she needs a full-size raw conversion, I'm notified and I'll do a high-level convert on only the files I need to.
After the retoucher is done, the wife or I do a final check to make sure it looks like "our" work, and then staff sends it off to the lab.
Lightroom cannot handle our DAM work, it clearly is not intended to ... so we'll have IVMP doing that ... and at that point, why do I want to have LR taking the time and harddrive space to have a library?
Or having myself or employees constantly having to delete the files?
Or taking the time for LR to "import" something that I don't want to do, just want to use it's corrections/editing features?
Am I missing something?
And before you say ... do only one pass at conversions to save time, I will not agree after five years of doing this digitally ... as the clients will NOT need a great pic of every scene we shoot them in, at large size, it is far faster to do the gang converts and then do the one or two they need done really well later.
Any other ideas thought? I'd like to see why I should use this program, there are parts really intriguing to me ... just looks like adding another step to do and an extra several steps to undo on every job.
Neil

Answer 1

Mike,
I have no quarrel with your workflow. If it suits you, it does. Period.
My point is that for those of us with a historically different organization--same name, differing extension files in the same folder, for example--by the tens of thousands already in our stock and working catalogs, LR is simply a no go until they bring the ability to see those files and work on them out of the same folder up to standard--to what the competition--including Bridge CS3--offers. The alternative is to redo our file/folder structure--not a chance.
You don't use a DAM--well LR Library is in fact a DAM by any definition I know of, and you have to I/O through Library--right now many standard features to be found in competitive DAMs are not in LR or don't function in LR without cumbersome, time consuming actions, or workarounds--adding folders(an unbelievably slow process), updating folders that have had images added from OUTSIDE of LR(requires running import again,IF one can remember all the folders that were changed during a session with another app)--I could go on listing those present features or lack of them that in fact hinder efficient workflow for the way our group of five pros work, and I have no doubt for others as well--judging from the chorus of complaints and feature requests.
Of course, these may or may not affect other shooters. But the features I mention are far more accessible and effective--and standards--on all the serious DAMs I have tried or now use.
Take a look at the 1300 or so threads here since release of V1 12 days ago--there are endless, common, recurring complaints about basic features that constrain workflow--like the same name file issue, cumbersome, slow I/O file and folder operations, ETC,ETC,ETC.
That it has improved your workflow is great--but judging from the many posts on basic issues--not 'Gee, I wish it had more icing on the cake' personal requests-- I am not the only potential user that finds it presently a hindrance to effective workflow.
Let me say that Develop is very good--but so is ACR 4 Bridge CS3 (same code, virtually same features)--and if LR Develop could be used as either a browser based or Library based module--other DAMs do that--we would buy five licences in a moment. We don't need, nor would we ever use, the very minimal featured Print, Web , and Slideshow modules--in fact I have shut them off on the trial I have been making. Others would use them, and that's fine, they have a choice. There is no choice now but to I/O through the DB, and that for us is simply too cumbersome and slow to make it worthwhile to use Develop.
I suspect Adobe are well aware of the complaints about basic features and will respond. For example, I fully expect to see LR handling same name files in the same folder in the dot upgrade--but until then, that criticsm of LR is valid and a show stopper for a number of users.