It was designed to be used only with 486 or later systems, and to force the market to buy new systems, add memory or buy bigger hard drives. The use of icons that are far from generically recognizable is hardly an improvement over a good menu system. Further, it is actually more difficult to move and aim the mouse than it is to choose 1 or 2 digits from a menu and press the Enter key. Some people seem to be influenced by the use of color, or windows, or pull-down menus. Remember that judicious use of color can enhance readability, but beware of excessive color - it can be distracting and hard on the eyes after awhile.
Menus are almost always helpful, whether in a pull-down style, separate screen or in a window.
I find windows to be like color, once in awhile it enhances, but windows within windows are often unnecessary and even confusing. The best help is context-sensitive, that is, the nature of the help provided is determined by what functions or commands the user is attempting to perform. A particular benefit of a local group is that they may be able to provide some hands-on demonstrations of various software packages. Besides compatibility, another consideration, if you need multiple types of software, is the ease of passing data between the packages involved. In some situations where integrated software is not available, a number of compatible related packages, such as Quicken and TurboTax, are sometimes available in promotional combination packages at a definite savings.