I'm constantly amazed at how people can put together good-sounding music in such a short amount of time. I sit down for like 5 hours straight and put together a 20-second fragment of a song that I have no clue on how to expand upon. Though, it all comes with practice I suppose.
I really liked the visual style that Tales of Vesperia had, it seemed very fitting for HD consoles. It's really disappointing to see them go back to their original style, which really makes it look like an up-res'd Tales of Graces (specifically the character models, not so much the environments).
Don't know if this counts as a studio, but I have been to Nintendo HQ in Seattle about 5+ years ago (around the time the Gamecube came out). They had these large panes of glass hanging from the ceiling with different Nintendo characters etched into them, a hallway which had several pedestals each holding a different system Nintendo released. Got Gamecube-branded pocketfan SWAG. They had street names for the area where all the cubicles were; things like "Luigi Lane, Bowser Bay, ect.".
I love the Mr. Driller Drill Land soundtrack so much. I've never actually played the game (or any of the Mr. Driller games for that matter), but I've listened to the soundtrack dozens of times.
Last time I bought software from Adobe, they included a free (one month?) trial for Lynda.com, so you might want to check for that. Additionally, I have found libraries to have some useful -- if slightly outdated -- resources for Adobe products.
When I was first learning the basics of Flash, I found this video series did a good job of clearly explaining some of the basics of Flash. I haven't really dealt with the other programs you mention and prefer Photoshop CS4 over Elements, so I can't really help on those fronts.
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