With Adobe moving more and more monthly licensing and little recent development in Aperture which ( if any) offers the better value/option in the long term?

I use Photoshop Elements 9 but find the use of masks slow and somewhat complex. (Nik plugins for PE make life easier) but now PE also seems to be moving into a monthly licensing direction this seems also to offer a poor longer term option.

Adobe say LR will stay out of creative cloud but I can't say I trust this advice much.

Is there any other PP tool I should look at?

Steve