Well, no Photoshop skills required for this exercise, it's just a matter of going to the site and clicking the various parts until you get a character that you're happy with. A few of them have been retouched in PS though - like when you said I shoulkd be sitting on a couch, I had to tweak it a bit to make him sitting down. I think Danny's arm hair was PSed in too.
But in answer to your question, there do seem to be a lot more people with a high degree of photo manipulation skill than there used to be. Stands to reason though. There are a lot more people with access to the software now than there used to be.
-S