It's also a decent, free and Free product in its own right, even if flawed. Just being Free makes it better than Photoshop for me. Calling it the "baseline" is pretty dismissive. It's better than Photoshop in some aspects.

Even if it was the baseline, here's the point of GIMP development: to make it a truly great alternative to Photoshop and similar proprietary tools. Even if you never quite achieve it, even if the target keeps moving, it's reason enough for continuing development.