My client used PaperPort prior to me ever stepping foot in their door. You'll have to ask the guy who originally installed it what his thought process was. But basically it is a cheaper alternative to Adobe Acrobat Writer.

As for not using Sendkeys... well there was no MAX to PDF converter, there was no com interface, and since there were nearly 25,000 files that needed converting, I wasn't going to sit there and do one at a time. As far as I could tell, I had no other alternative.