I think we all have an internal landscape that sometimes we see in our dreams, and sometimes, if we think of ourselves as artists, musicians, sculptors or whatever, we are lucky enough to be able to illustrate in a form that others can see.  That can take a multitude of foms, from scratchings on a cave wall, to the work (for example) of Millais, Picasso, Lou Reed, Steven Spielberg, the Ramones or any other form of visual or other self-expression you care to name.  As long as what you have created reflects that internal vision and is the best you can do with the tools you have to hand, then it's no-one else's damn business what tools you use.  Sure, an awesome ZBrush sculpt will blow your socks off and represents a serious amount of effort in it's own right, but does effort expended= great art?  My own opinion is that no, it doesn't.  I've had this argument over and over, across at CGSociety.com, where the mere mention of Poser causes rivers of blood to flow and immense flame wars to break out -  funnily enough, now that I've started making serious money with Poser, the critics over there have crawled back under their ZBrush-rendered rocks (I was one of the first people in the UK to own ZBrush and I love it, so don't go there), and are now silent.  I also have an honours degree in Fine Art (painting) and the History of Art, and I remain convinced that Poser is a perfectly valid method of creating art, as is all CG.  To attempt to differentiate between various apps and say that the output of one is art whereas the output of another isn't, is to denigrate all CG art, and is tantamount to saying that someone who makes pictures using paint made by company "x" is an artist, whereas  someone using paint "y" isn't...a ludicrous argument.  Art should be a representation of what you want to portray; the only rider I would add is that, if you want to be able to look yourself in the eye is to say that you really should strive to make your pictures the absolute best that you can, if you don't you're cheating yourself and your creations become devalued.  Just my two-penn'orth.

My self-build system - Vista 64 on a Kingston 240GB SSD, Asus P5Q Pro MB, Quad 6600 CPU, 8 Gb Geil Black Dragon Ram, CoolerMaster HAF932 full tower chassis, EVGA Geforce GTX 750Ti Superclocked 2 Gb, Coolermaster V8 CPU aircooler, Enermax 600W Modular PSU, 240Gb SSD, 2Tb HDD storage, 28" LCD monitor, and more red LEDs than a grown man really needs.....I built it in 2008 and can't afford a new one, yet.....!

My Software - Poser Pro 2012, Photoshop, Bryce 6 and Borderlands......"Catch a  r--i---d-----e-----!"