I’m going to start this off with what I use, & why I use it. Feel free to add your own link to what you feel is appropriate.
It helps to look at RAW as taking control of your "negative", as opposed to just being extra work that you have to do. Yes, sometimes I'll shoot a JPG, but I just don't see any reason to spend in the 4 figure$ for a camera & not try to squeeze out the most from it 99.99% of the time. RAW processing has saved me several times, so...
“Why I LOVE RAW!”
I started using the Canon DPP utilities, but Adobe Bridge works, too.
I usually only go into PS now to crop, resize & do some final sharpening unless it's a complex shot. For the simple shots, RSE saves the conversion info so I can delete the big tiff file & save a lot of hard drive space in the long run. For instance, use the Snapshot feature & you can save several versions if you need a light & dark exposure for contrast control.
EDIT: A RAW vs. Jpeg discussion - "Custom settings"
Take a RAW + Max jpeg shot. A max jpg from my 20D is 2,754 KB. The exact same shot with the jpg extracted from RAW is 4,315 KB, which is 1.57X larger.
Whatever info is in my extracted jpg is a lot more detailed than what comes right out of the camera, because the Max jpg has been compressed in the camera. Why throw those extra bits away?
EDIT: Forkball's post here shows some examples on page 2, post #58, that illustrate easily seen information loss in a web jpeg derived from a RAW file & one shot in the camera after he made a small white balance change.
The original thread:
Auto White Balance - works really well (Actually, it doesn't!)
If you're new to the Forum, there are also excellent links in the Sticky "Post Processing Tutorials List" that should be helpful.
Have fun, & welcome to a RAW world! 
