Getting professional results from Gimp

I've got to disagree. There are uses to which you can put photo editing where you need 16bit color, but they're not universal. Mostly, what I find is that problems arise when you're attempting to match colors, and then go through a color-correction step on the way to print. That can *really* make your work look like garbage, and it's true that using 16bit color can reduce the impact of such a conversion with color correction, but it's also true that using a more sophisticated color correction system will avoid the problem entirely.

The problem is that most of the world assumes that you're using Photoshop, and so limitations in Photoshop's output are compensated for by color management and printing applications, but other applications' shortcomings are not. Moving The Gimp to 16bit color would help, but not eliminate this problem. Ultimately, the correct solution is to enlarge the Gimp user base to the point that it's no longer ignorable for the print world.