I've been using Fireworks since 2.0 and love it. When it comes to creating web graphics nothing else touches it's ease of use and features (even Photoshop). Fireworks was made for the web - Photoshop wasn't - those features were thrown in afterwards.
Don't get me wrong I love photoshop and use it for my digital photo retouching, but when it comes to web graphics Fireworks does the job and does it well.
My only gripe is that Fireworks can be quite the resource hog. At least 256 MB of RAM is needed to run effectively and I would recommend at least 512 MB. The more the better.
I use Macromedia Fireworks for all my graphic needs. It took me less than a hour to learn the program. The features aren't as powerful as PhotoShop, however, Fireworks is just so easy to use.