I think if you're doing mainly layout and writing, Pagemaker will work admirably. The company where I used to work still uses Pagemaker for over 50-page proposals. I personally use the three Adobe softwares because I like Illustrator's and Photoshop's power. I use and like both Quark and Pagemaker. I learned Pagemaker 3 or 4 years before I had even heard about Quark.
Quark has advantages when talking about graphics.
With graphics this means that you never have to worry about the graphic hanging out of its border. But it also means that for a border around text, you really need a text box within a graphics box. Quark had advantages for long documents over PM in that once a text flow is setup from text box to text box, it will always occur that way. In Pagemaker, when text is cut short, you must manually place the running text back where you want it. I have used both programs, admittedly I've used Pagemaker more than Quark.