I was making a transition from working full time to retirement, a transition to a personal laptop for all my needs, and the need to purchase a new editing tool or stick with Photoshop and its monthly costs. At a retirement income, the Adobe pricing structure was less attractive. I say that, but then I spent quite a bit of $$$ getting PL7, then PL9, NIK, Filmpack & Viewpoint…..
The biggest draw to PL was the way it handles noise. I shoot Olympus, and it has noisy sensors (in my opinion). I was blown away by the noise reduction in PL — and that alone was what led me to make the switch.
Additionally, I have used NIK almost since it was first marketed ( a number of “owners” ago) and am quite invested in it in my workflow. So, having DXO as the developer of both PL and NIK was a big draw.