I don't know if this is a common phenomenon.  I've spoken with a lot of artists who swear by their Wacoms and don't ever work on anything else at all, but I've found that while my Wacom Bamboo is good for some things, when it comes to rapid design I'm much happier tossing off sheet after sheet of paper with a handful of colored pencils.   I'll use the Wacom for clean-up, and that'll be extensive use, but the initial will always be done on paper.  The tactility, simplicity, and above all else the narrow focus of "just draw it on paper" seems to work for me.

This was especially true yesterday.  I was trying to design a blackboard theme, with lots of chalk lines, and no matter what I tried, my handwriting via the Wacom sucked.  On paper, my hand is quite readable, but on the Wacom, no dice.  Scrawly, off-center, badly angled.  I imagine if I have a Wacom Cintiq the quality would have been substantially changed, but a Bamboo is for clean-up, nothing more.