Hiya guys,
IMHO you don't necessarily need to use InDesign! a DO NOT DARE to call me amateur O_O
For a small mags (4-8 pages) or one-offs, with loads of visual/edited/non-grid material I think that spreadsheets in Illustrator would do. It's easier for beginners to generate decent artwork with it and -as far as you do your homework- the guys from pre-press won't hate you exesively.
If what you are after is heavy volume, with chapters a complex grid, and you want to keep consistency from number to number, then InDesign is your thing.
The big NO is for photoshop. Although quicker to sketch (if you don't sketch by pen&paper) the raster output would never be appropriate for small print, you don't have pagination, and using a hiddend layer as a grid is worse than designing with CorelDraw.
Make the production guys a favour and provide to them a full size (or closer to full size) hardcopy, properly colated. That would save both parties headaches and precious time.
My only complain about Indesign -a least in CS3- is that it has very poor collaborative tools, so working with a team can make things complicated.
-my two cents-