After reading through the software list again, even within the categories listed, there are softwares I want some considerations for additions.
Graphics.
Not everyone needs the power of photoshop. Heck, extremely limited number of people can really utilize the power of photoshop anyway. Seriously, it's a professional tool, not a casual home entertainment tool. I've never used this personally, but I think Photoshop Elements should be mentioned as well. Priced just below $90, it's much more affordable, and should pose less learning curve.
And for someone who doesn't care about Adobe product, I suggest Paint Shop Pro as a solid alternative to PS. Priced just under $100, it still is an extremely powerful image editor. The feature set should be pretty close to that of Photoshop. (I really can't testify myself, since I don't have Photoshop.) The version of PSP I own supports the plug-in system that's compatible with Photoshop's. In fact, I have Eye Candy plugin loaded on mine. (A tad old, I hardly use it, but... it's there.)
If someone is very very tight on budget, still want a powerful image editor, and don't mind a HUGE learning curve, GIMP should be a valid option too. It's originally made for unix/linux environment, so the user interface will look foreign to Windows users. It took me quite a while to feel even somewhat comfortable with this software. But to me, it's definitely worth it.
Audio:
I really have to put my plug for foobar2000. It doesn't have as nice of a skinnable interface as winamp (it's somewhat skinnable - if the default interface look boring, check out
http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/fb2k/. Or check out Columns UI plugin.). But I choose foobar over winamp for a few reasons. *I don't need a pretty interface for my audio player. Most of the time, this app would be hidden behind other apps anyway. If that's the case, I'd much rather use an app that take up less memory too. *A damn good set of audio filter comes with the standard installation, so you can play back almost any audio types out of the box. (There are still a few others, such as Monkey's Audio decoder which need to be downloaded separately.) *Pretty good audio converter interface. Not that I use this often, but it comes in handy from time to time. *Fair set of filters. The graphic EQ has finer control than that of standard winamp - which can be good and bad. *Damn good tag editor. I'm now in love with the tag editor interface as of 0.9.3. It's the best one I've ever used. *Licensing? Free, opensource. *Gapless playback of mp3 files work better than any gapless plugin for winamp I've tried. Important for live albums and classical albums.
Media Player:
If you list VLC, you may also want to list MPLayer. It's also a player that has a built-in, ffmpeg based decoder, just like VLC. By default, it does not have any type of GUI. But as of current, it has much better softsub support. (Only on the bleeding edge, non-official builds.)
Free Security software:
At least list Sygate Personal Firewall as one of the free alternatives.