I agree with you mo. But I found that I learned better with the actions bc I was able to play with te sliders and I would go from sooc use an action and manipulate things then go from sooc and make the picture the way the action would.
I've found actions to be a HUGE waste of money. I have tons of them I bought when I first got into digital, some I've won, some I've tested for action makers... They just take up space on my computer.
You are far better invested to decide on what YOU want your image to look like and create an action to do exactly that. And you can sell it if you want to! People throw thousands and thousands of dollars away on actions every day. home has some nice ones. The Coffee Shop blog has some great freebies you can play with if you want to get a feel of them. Kubota does have some that I really like. I think I have his 1-4 sets and there is one action in all of it that I still use today, but there are some great ones there if you know how to use them.