MSPaint doesnt suck, it is good for the actual drawing, and once you know all the hotkeys and tricks, you can make much faster progress then in PSP. Also, if your computer sucks, and you make sets using 256 color method, I dont see any reason why you wouldnt want to use JPS in combination with MSPaint :P

These are mostly invidual opinions though, but I myself find it easier to work with MSPaint, and this is probably ive used it most of my life for the drawing. palettes and other effects i do with other programs.

Anyway I use psp too, mostly for decreasing colors of an image. I use Wally for textures, its a very easy to use program where you can make good textures at really fast speeds.