If you want to eventually learn to use gEDA for hobby use you can by all means. I'm just providing an opinion as someone who has been designing PCBs using Eagle for a number of years. Right now my rough count of PCBs of various designs produced and sold is about 25,000. Not exactly Sony but enough to have a pretty good idea what works when trying to get an electronics company off the ground. I learned Eagle using the free version years before actually starting a company, and then when I bought the pro version it paid for itself with the first design.
I did try gEDA, and Orcad, and PADS, and Pulsonix, and Autotrax, and Diptrace, and several others. Right now Eagle has the best balance of features and cost for me.
You cannot realistically start a business while being worried about a $1000 investment into a production tool that indisputably has value. Starting up the business we both had to put in $10,000 each that we didn't necessarily have to spare and could reasonably expect never to see again. Risk is always there. One time on another forum I saw someone ask if it was OK to make people pay for a kit product before he even produced and shipped them, afraid to invest any of his own money. That is the mindset destined to throw in the towel on a startup before it even has a chance.
I really don't want to point fingers because you have valid points on a philosophical perspective, and companies like EMSL do use gEDA, but by your own admission earlier in the thread you haven't even designed any PCBs yet. I highly recommend just trying a few packages, make the same design in each.