I started with the freebie too, way back when and used it in anger when working for British Rail during the strike in the 90's. I produced the revised train timetables on it that went from a single double sided sheet of A4 to a weekly 32 page booklet printed by an outside firm. Happy days. I also used PagePlus - upgraded paid for versions - in my other employments producing all sorts of print media, it still is a very good program.
There are things that the Affinity Suite can't do that the old PagePlus, DrawPlus can do. One main gripe was the lack of a 'Book' facility, which has now been addressed.
I would say that it is worth the money, just to keep your hand in on modern software - it will reach a point when the old programs won't be able to hack it, and the cost is not great in comparison with other offerings.
I use Affinity because I work on a Mac, but sometime fire up the old laptop and PagePlus just for nostagia