Just comment on mentioned comparison of ArcGIS / QGIS / Mapinfo -
kth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:729183/FULLTEXT01.pdf . The evaluation schema says you can't move labels in QGIS (oh yes you can), you don't have conflict detection (oh yes you have, though not perfect, but definitely works better than in Mapinfo which is checked), you don't have free placement of legend items - you can easily have freely positioned legend for every item you need.