Regarding Adobe Acrobat: There is a program called pdf 995 that does a far better job generating pdf files from Windows, including directly from Word. You can use it for free and registering it only costs $10. I regularly use it on complex, technical documents (filled with math, figures, and tables) and it always provides better quality output than does Acrobat.

It's not on your list, but if you'd like a brand new, shrink-wrapped copy of Adobe Illustrator, let me know and I'll send it to you.