[Aleks]

YES, RAW lets you take more control over the final image.

-Blacks look blacker. The 'Blacks' tool easily allows you to control the dark colors and how dark you want them.
-Colors come out better
-Instead of 'sharpening' you choose the amount of 'clearness' in the image which means that sharp corners aren't created and the sky doesn't get as much noise.
-You can saturate images or choose 'Vibrance' which saturates some colors but not all. It also creates less noise on images.
-You can choose the exposure which is better than using 'Brightness' because it doesn't make the image look all ugly.
-Contrasts look better
-Brightness level is wayyy better
-Temperature and Tint affect the image more without making it too red.
-'Recovery' allows you to make the image darker or lighter. It's not the same as Brightness or exposure. It balances out the lighting in the picture if you will.

So in the end, yes. It is. And these are the only things available in Photoshop Elements! Of course, the downside is that you need special software in Microsoft computers to view the images and edit them. Like Photoshop or Picasa. You can't view them on default photo viewers.