Plugins are a tool, like anything else.
If you don't know how to use a hammer properly, you'd think "hammers suck." I get the same thing all the time regarding plugins.
The trick is learning to use the tool, not expecting it to do all the work for you. Companies like Corel and Andromeda could never sell plugins at the sometimes very high cost ($74 for just the cutline filter. One filter, that basically does only one thing...) if there were not a need and a use for them.
Those who proclaim so loudly that filters and plugins suck simply do not know how to use the tools properly. There are way too many professionals, both production and fine art wise, who use plugins and filters everyday, in almost everything they do. You just can't tell it by looking at their work, because it is part of the process, not a result in and of itself...
This effect can be done with the Liquify filter's twirl, combined with Polar coordinates, and a few layers with different blending modes and layer styles, some blurred, some duplicated.
This is 6 layers, less than 5 minutes, at a very poor 72ppi resolution. At 300ppi, with just slightly more time, you could very easily create this effect. Blending modes and some judicious erasing of select layers is the key. The Liquify twirl and polar coordinates make it pretty easy without using a 3D app, but patience and skill are still needed, as they are in any good effect.