Its a but funny that you say Indesign is the weakest of the three considering that in professional setting its Indesign (and After Effects) that keeps people with Adobe. Its the most complex one and the only irreplaceable one. Everything that ever gets printed is done with Indesign. Every book, poster, cover, billboard, business card…
Adobe Publisher is close though and in many important ways its way better than Indesign (speed, stability, editing of photos/vectors directly inside publisher) but it lacks one main feature and thats scripts api/third party plugins. Until they release that then professional shops simply cant switch because of automation and super specific workflows they need.
I'll be pedantic and say it really depends on which "professional setting" as to which programs keep people with Adobe. But I assume you mean in the print world.
Personally though, InDesign is (to me) simultaneously both the strongest product in its category, but also the weakest in terms of feature/development compared to the other headlining Adobe product.
Yeah because Adobe doesnt care since they know print industry has no other choice. Indesign has been basically only getting worse since CS6/the subscription. The only useful feature in last 15 years has been pdf comments/corrections.
Whats worst is that each version makes it more unstable and crashes with indesign can be costly.
I know several design studios that keep old macs to do work in CS6 because of that.
At the same time its more often than not their fault. 80% dont need scripting or advanced indesign features but they are lazy/old to learn anything new. Unfortunately this will drag Indesign probably forever since you need to collaborate.
Adobe Publisher is close though and in many important ways its way better than Indesign (speed, stability, editing of photos/vectors directly inside publisher) but it lacks one main feature and thats scripts api/third party plugins. Until they release that then professional shops simply cant switch because of automation and super specific workflows they need.