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I don't like renting anything. PS might only be $120/year and that's cheap I guess, particularly if you are using it for making a living.
I would look at things differently I reckon if I were using it to earn a living and all that. For me, I do edit a lot, not every day. I switched to Affinity in 2019 for a one time fee of $40 and free updates ever since. PS I'd aready have $360 in it and adding to that every month. I figure if I croak, my wife is likely to continue paying with auto payments for who knows how long.

I never used LR, but other than it's photo catalogue aspects what is it's purpose? It seems you now rent LR along with PS, right?

Does LR have capabilities not available in PS (besides cataloging I guess). Just seems highly unlikely Adobe would add features to LR not available to PS itself, but since I don't use either, it's just a curiosity.

For me, when I did use PS it was easy enough to use, in fact I found it much easier than PSE which was a dumbed down version of PS. Anyhow, IF I were wedded to version 6, which I think was the last standalone version, I personally would stick with it or go with other software like Affinity or ACDSee that is not rented. If I didn't mind the rental fees, then I'd just use PS and be done with it?

Also, masking is seriously tied in with layers in all the editors I've used, including PS, and out of curiosity, does LR now include layers with it's masking abilities?