Truth about perfection in photography

In photography, generally only the small stuff is to be improved. For example, color correction, contrast, white balance, noise, and distortion: each needs to generally be at least slightly improved upon. Small improvements, but a large number of them, each of which are mostly unnoticed by the casual, inexperienced, viewer. And to make perfection, the ideal software needs to be used, or the one that's almost, if not always, more expensive. Cheaper software might do the same job, but generally only to some point, after which not all of the information that comprises the photo is there anymore. On other words, with relatively cheap photography software, you can only go so far before you might preserve all perfection in a photo. One way in which this perfection can get lost is if the software starts to destructively edit a photo of yours. But initially what i had in mind regarding cheaper software is, that there is essentially damage done to the quality of the initial RAW input after a specific amount of editing or enhancing may be done. For example, from start to finish, my Photoshop Elements 15 photo editing software can only keep a file as a RAW for some time, at least if extensive editing may be required. It's not as flexible as say, Photoshop CC. That's what I've noticed, but perhaps your experiences have varied from mine. And if that's the case, then let me know what tour experiences with photography software has been, especially if it has involved the editing of RAW or DNG files.