You can see what programs are capable of what, and as your skills progress, the book will inspire you to try new things. I like CorelDraw the best, but Canvas has some nice features too. Those are the PC ones. If you don't have lots of money to spend, SuperPaint or ArtWorks are both excellent, but they are only available for the Mac. Corel is adding souped up grid features to rival Canvas.
Every version seems to get better.
Very good question. I don't know the answer, but I'd be surprised if they didn't. I have 3 and 8. Even word processing programs that have drawing abilities have grids. Check them out, you may be pleasantly surprised.