Originally Posted by Marc Sabatella 
If all you do is convert to JPEG using default settings and *then* edit using another program, you might as well just shoot JPEG in the first place, because you aren't getting any of the benefits of RAW.
Totally agree. If you're using a RAW workflow you shouldn't need to do anything else to the JPEG you export. I actually only convert to JPEG for output to email or the web (like to upload to Flickr)
Have a look
here for a RAW vs. JPEG article I wrote if you're interested.