yeah the thing about photoshop is really the shortcuts! it makes you work a hole lot faster. and my dithering, it was made using a costume brush.
I made a patter like this
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
and set that as a brush tip, so now I paint groups of pixels like that. it's really helpfull.
most people will say that photoshop has far too many tools that dont make sence for pixeling. but thats if you'r counting on using photoshop only for pixeling. if so, I wouldn't advise you so. but if you wanna use it for other stuff, like cg painting, design and stuff like that, than it's the mother of all software
(this is starting to sound like a salesman speach
)
take care,
Kazuya