I really enjoy the variety of brushes in Painter and the interesting effects you can get with them, but for painting I much prefer using Photoshop because I understand the program better. I think having a good knowledge of photoshop is pretty good regardless of what program you choose to use (sai, painter, firealpaca, what have you), it's a really important program to get familiar with. As for the tablet I just use a Wacom Bamboo, which is like a beginner tablet without that many bells or whistles, but for practice/learning and general art it works pretty well. The tools don't matter nearly as much as your personal kill. You really don't need anything too much better unless you are a professional in which case you'd probably invest into an Intuos or something. I'm interested in getting my hands on a Monoprice since it's cheap and I've heard good things but it's a relatively luxury to me at this point since I don't really need it.