My needs are different from most users’ as I want to take screenshots in games as well as screenshots on the desktop for documentation purposes. I also have a lot of image manipulation tools, which most people don’t. So I want something that takes shots, and I dont want to pay for annotation / manipulation tools

There are a lot of good free and shareware tools out there, some very newbie friendly and some with more options than you can even read about…

I found a treat with GrabClipSave http://www.boumchalak.de/GCS.html, which is dirt simple but takes great shots of anything including games.

On the commercial front I love Snagit -it has a lot of features and the annotation tool works really well- but it is rather pricey for home use.
UPDATE: Snagit has a new version. Is still great and the price has gone down. Seems a bit resource hungry at times for something resident in the tray bar