I use Photoshop, because it is what I have, and cost me $$$. Why is Photoshop stupid? It is because it is overkill? I would like to know the features I am missing using photoshop.
well... let's see. no smart ramping. no dither patterns on it's own. no active color replacement. No active palette adjustment. No going up and down a palette slot with shortcut keys like [ ]. No useful paint modes like darken/lighten or tint. No exact bitdepth control (not just 16,8,indexed but 3,3,3 if you want for example). No animbrush. Is that enough?
You're searching for the ultimate pixelling program: Cosmigo ProMotion. There you go.