I can't give you any up-to-date PCB CAD market info, but I can relate my experience. I'm using a very old version of Easy PC from Number One Systems (
http://www.numberone.com/easypc.asp), which I like.
There are PC-board manufacturers that have free CAD but it's only good if you have
them make your board for you. Myself, I would not go that route at all. If you later want to go to a different board house, you will have to get and learn another CAD, and re-make your special components that don't come with any CAD. (Although the majority of parts on a board will be in the common packages like SO-8, DIP-16, SOT-23, 0603, etc., there will alwyas be ones that you have to make up in the CAD, whether connectors, relays, whatever.)
One of the many demos I tried when I was shopping for CAD many years ago was Eagle, and they said it absolutely will not crash like other CADs. Well, the demo itself crashed. I had gotten very proficient at my previous job with OrCAD but it had more bugs than an ant hill, and I had written up a small book of complaints, at the request of the engineering manager, so I knew OrCAD was out. (What can you expect from a company that after 25+ years still doesn't know how to draw the schematic symbol for a resistor correctly?) After evaluating quite a few packages, I narrowed my choices down to Maxi-PC which was a little under $2K and Easy-PC Pro which was only $375. The cash-strapped company got me the cheaper one. It's not fancy, but I've found ways to do many things with it that it probably was not initially designed to do, partly because it's simple and doesn't try to second-guess my intentions and tell me I can't do this or that. I've done some very dense and complex boards (up to 500 parts and 12 layers) with it. Supposedly it can even do blind and burried vias, although I've never tried that. Easy-PC Pro had a lot of bugs initially too, but Number One Systems listened and cleaned it up pretty well; but then they kept adding more and more features that were of no value to me (like an autorouter that's nowhere near as smart as a human--autorouters are
not the way to get good density anyway--, simulation, etc.), and making it somewhat less friendly too, so I quit taking the updates.
I've been thinking I should look into EDA (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_EDA_Software). Actually I do use the gerbv gerber-viewer Linux EDA software to make sure my finished design is really what I wanted. Much of the EDA software is free. What's wrong with my old CAD? Very little actually, which is why I've been hesitant to invest the time to learn a new package and start re-making my ton of special components in it. I may have no choice but to update eventually though.