This discussion comes up so often in various forums that it's getting tiresome...

There are two kinds of people debating this: artists and modellers.
Unfortunately, some modellers think they are artists just because they model. That's wrong.
Some people think they are artists just because they... well, think so! Equally wrong.

The truth is: It doesn't matter one bit how a piece of art was made just as long as it speaks to the person looking at it. Period.

A modeller who thinks he is more of an artists just because he can bend vertices better than somebody else is just pathetic. I'll watch good Poser art over bad Maya art any day. In the end, the result speaks for itself. Discussing the merits of the tool used to achieve the result is a technical discussion, not an art discussion. Never confuse those two.