Homeschool: Skipping the curriculum

There are oh-so-many excellent curricula available these days for homeschooling parents to use with their children. With options available for every sort of style and schedule and budget, why would anyone choose to wing it instead of letting someone else decide the age appropriate lessons and having the whole year (or 12 years) spelled out without the extra work being on the parent's shoulders? It makes so much more sense to save the time and trouble of sorting through lesson planning by leaving that to an expert, giving the parent more time to actually teach (or to do other things).
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I can't think of one thing that would convince me to sign up for someone else's education package. There are just too many reasons that I've chosen not to. We'll use packages for individual subjects (mostly math), but most of the school day will be devoted to learning without textbooks and without a plan written out by someone else. Primarily I'm interested in teaching my children life skills, which they can (and hopefully for many of them, will) choose to continue well beyond their formal years of education. Many packages may attempt to focus on life skills, yet I haven't seen one yet that centers on the particular skills that my husband and I consider so important. The compromises aren't worth it for us.
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Our days begin with two hours of family time, including Scripture memorization, family prayers, chores, Bible study, art lesson, narration, and math review. I'm hoping to begin some basic cookery soon (1. Scoop yogurt into bowls. 2. Add honey.) but first we have to get our 6yr to get up and dressed a bit faster than she does at the moment. Our family prayers and Bible studies reflect our faith as ecumenical, charismatic, communitarian, traditional, Catholic Christians. NO ONE will match that in their prepared curriculum. Generally I find the expectations are either way too weak (as in, picture Bibles, while our girls at 4 and 6yrs know more already about Scripture than I knew at 12yrs) or have a very different worldview (e.g. distinctly anti-Catholic or focused on private Catholic devotions that don't fit well with our family). It's not that we couldn't drop or change certain elements of a particular prepared curriculum, but that all the changes together make it no longer worthwhile. I would spend so much time adjusting it to our family that I'd lose all the benefits of lessons planned by someone else. I actually save time, especially at this age, by skipping the curriculum and preparing lessons myself.
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I'm well aware that homeschooling won't always be as easy as it is right now. I will need to put more thought into lessons as our students move beyond K and pre-K (or whatever grade they're actually learning at...probably 1st or 2nd for most subjects for our 6yr and kindergarten for our 4yr...). But the foundational habits we're working on now will pave the way for all future grades like no prepared curriculum ever could.
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Linked with Works for Me Wednesday, Little House in the Suburbs, Modest Monday