People in design agencies have PS, and can open anything a client sends. Once they have their source material they can work in any environment they like. Adobe makes it convenient to always "color within their lines". One thing that strikes me as ironic, is the notion that you can tell a creative person how to perform some arbitrary creative task. People send all kinds of garbage to design firms (my wife is a creative type at such a firm), including Adobe files but also including every other kind of junk you can imagine.

>Same with MS Office.

Yes, terrible people, we all have worked with them, but we don't want to emulate them.

>Same with expensive 3D software.

Good technique is good technique, skills are skills, a competent person can adapt their workflow to a new method or vehicle. A competent artist can express themselves in more than one medium.

It comes down to this, if you are constrained to a single tool made by a single vendor, you are strictly a technician (in the narrowest sense).

Yeah, if you're trying for a mediocre job at a mediocre firm (most graduates and entry level folk) it makes it hard. You have to change the conversation away from empty buzzwords and back you your core talents, and you have to have confidence in yourself to do that successfully. There are lots of factors working against the folk in that field, large supply of average/mediocre candidates who are clueless about basic econ and accustomed to being taken advantage of.