I'm curious what web development software you use that you consider a "Professional web development tool"?
If you developing in PHP and MySQL I understand the statement above and you would use an appropriate IDE but what if you're developing in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for example?
I've also noticed that these days many businesses looking for new websites are not so interested in fancy flash and slow loading sites. Is this also what you're seeing?
Steve
I didn't mean to start a holy war. Also, I am not a true expert or even a professional, but I do have a fairly well rounded understanding of web development principles for a non-expert.
There are probably hundreds of professional development solutions of all shapes, colors and sizes. The good news is that some of them are really starting to grow up and mature. Personally, my general favorite is Drupal. It meets my needs for everything I am doing currently.
As far as flash goes, I really don't like it. A little might be acceptable and there are a few outside use cases where it does a reasonably good job (like online videos), but it is almost always the wrong way to do things when you are talking about site layout. In my opinion, it should go the way of table layouts. It can be pretty, but it doesn't have much else going for it. If you don't believe me, try navigating a typical flash site with a text to speech browser as a blind person or even just try viewing the site with flash disabled, or with a tiny screen and so forth and so on.
I don't think too many people are developing in php and mysql from scratch any more. (I am not talking about the cut and paste crowd here) It isn't a bad way of doing things, but it is usually far more productive to do coding inside of a more advanced framework like Drupal, ruby on rails, django, joomla or one of the hundreds of others that are out there.
As far as quoting a site or a page as they do sometimes for static sites, you will see prices that are all over the map with levels of service (not necessarily corresponding to the price levels) also all over the map.
Web development is sort of like farming. You can do it with a stick and a few seeds, or you can use enormous machinery on tracks. Neither answer is necessarily wrong, but they are different solutions designed to meet different needs.