There have definitely been some useful suggestions provided to your initial post. Ultimately as mentioned, you will need to evaluate which solution fits your specific situation.
The one problem I have found with demo versions of software is that I typically got so involved with how to use...
I would suggest looking at RAM Elements, it is a good general purpose program for doing 2D / 3D frames but also gives you some nice design toolkits. It is a program that I use everyday.