I use Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 which is not mapping software per se, rather vector drawing software. So it can do a lot more than just mapping - illustrations, PDF creation, page layout, graphic design, some image editing capability. It is $89 software. I use it for all my mapping. If you look at any of my maps, probably best just to click on the various award badges under my avatar for challenge win maps, but I have 100+ maps posted here. I use Xara to create professional maps for RPG publishers like Paizo Publishing, Rite Publishing and many others. There's a 30 day free trail, and excellent tutorials for using the basic program on the main Xara site to get you started. I have a couple tutorials posted on this site, but I have a bunch of quick tutorials posted on my G+ community, as I am currently writing a series of map tutorials guides using any software (though I'm still using Xara to create all the sample maps and tutorial illustrations).
I also have Dundjini, Campaign Cartographer 3, City Designer, Fractal Mapper 8, Photoshop 7, GIMP, Adobe Illustrator and various 3D software applications - I'm a graphic designer in the daytime, and run my own graphic design/digital print studio - Gamer Printshop (hence my forum name). My studio has been in business since 1994, and I worked the print graphic arts industry for 10 years before that. So I have lots of experience with lots of graphics software, and personally, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 is the best software for most mapping purposes (in my opinion). I find it easy to learn and use, plus its extremely memory compact, making it one of the fastest applications you'll ever use. Basically apply any effect and it happens instantly with infinite undo so you can apply, view result, back up and try again easily and quickly which really improves your production time for overall mapping.
That said, I am one of the only members on this site that uses Xara for mapping at all, so it's not necessarily popular or well known, but I think it's one of the best mapping packages out there.
Dundjini is nothing more than a tile stamp program. You need to create the custom tiles in another program, as Dundjini only allows you to place the tiles, but allows no custom creation itself. Both FM8 and CC3 are CAD programs, so steep learning curves, and though both are excellent mapping programs, neither really creates map objects (the things you place on maps - mountains, buildings, etc) only placing them on various layers.
It also wouldn't hurt to get GIMP for a powerful image editor (like Photoshop) but is FREE software.
With Xara I create most of my map objects: trees, buildings, monsters, mountains, pits, everything - and the map itself.
Also I do a lot of hand-drawing with pen on paper, then digitally scanned and imported to Xara to finish with colors, labels, grids, etc.
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