Historgram adjustment may be doing something similar but, it's definitely not as easy to use.
F7 just brings up the historgram, you cannot change your image from within it. What I am talking about is the Levels tool contains a histogram as part of its UI, so you immediately see your black and white points.
I'm on PaintShopPro 8, and I have just got Photoshop Elements 2 as bundled piece of software with some hardware I got. So far Levels alone is making me of switching next time I upgrade. Having the histogram as the interface of the tool makes you get to your adjustments faster. Also, if you click on the levels point, you can dial in changes using your mouse wheel. Very sweet.
In PSP 8 you can adjust the individuals levels from within the histogram tool and there is another tool for setting B&W points. Also under adjust brightness and contrast there is a LEVELS tool for adjusting overall, plus red, blue and green levels.