I think that what you are hearing is that some image management software will simplify things for you. There is image management software designed to work hand in hand with Photoshop, or there is photography oriented software like aperture or lightroom that includes photo management as part of the package.
There are some things that are simply easier and more powerful in photoshop, but for 95% of my images, I do not need those features. When I do, I right click on the image in Lightroom to send to photoshop, and after editing photoshop sends it back either to replace the original, or in my case, as a copy so I still have a unchanged original. You can choose edit original, edit a copy, or even edit in lightroom and further edit in photoshop.