What's Wrong With Plain Soil?

I know the answer to this question before I've got started. If you plant your flowers in a bed and do just that. The soil, and plants, will either be washed away by rain or a hundred weeds will grow much faster than your plants spoiling your beautiful landscaping.
In Connecticut we laid mulch on our beds. These dead bits of tree bark weighed a ton and cost lots. I think the job was done every other year. A mountain of the stuff would be delivered and you would have to use a shovel and a wheel barrow to move it around the garden.
When we moved to Atlanta I was amazed to find that all the beds were covered in pineneedles. As our new house was on a new sub-division the landscaping was very raw. Rather than flowers surrounded by pineneedles there was just areas of pineneedles with neatly trimmed edges to separate the grass from the pineneedles.
I am not sure when pineneedles become pinestraw. It must happen when they are transported from some far away forests to Atlanta and then tied in bales with plastic orange string.
It all seemed very strange and not very attractive.
When we had lived in our house for a year we were aware that we had rather more bare, rocky areas than pinestraw covered areas. Nasty rumours were spreading around the neighborhood concerning by-laws that made it essential for all residents to cover all their bald spots with pinestraw. We dug deep into our pockets and ordered a frightening number of bales to be delivered. It was at this point that I suddenly realized how much better pinestraw is than mulch: it weighs next to nothing. No shovel or wheel barrow are needed you just have to carry the bales and then sling the stuff all around you. Your muscles don't become sore, it's just that your arms are scratched to death and the dust inthe bales makes you retch for hours.
Some pineneedles are better than other pineneedles. You need the right color, the right supplier and you need to have paid a bargain price for it otherwise you can not chat over a cocktail with the neighbors. Of course everyone has only paid half of what you paid for yours and it is of a much better quality than the stuff you picked up yourself from Home Depot. The conversations remind me of those that take place on airplanes when everyone is claiming to have got their seat for next tonothing.
Finally, the most annoying thing about all this seems to be troubling me right at this moment.... Our house is surrounded by pine trees and within the next few weeks they will shed bales of pinestraw onto my lawn. It then needs to be racked off the lawn and onto the flower beds BUT it is the wrong color and leaves then fall on top of it. SO I have to go to Home Depot and pay a load of money for there bales that I have to lay over the dead leaves and the wrong colored pinestraw.