Using photographs produces great-looking results faster, but you can achieve the same quality starting with no base at all... it'll just take damn near forever! So I don't believe photo-based textures are better just because they're photo-based. I'm sure we've all seen low-quality photo-based textures.

I certainly can't appreciate the fact that this took you MONTHS, since photos do allow one to produce textures like this within hours, and that's the catch. You say they're hand-painted, and the fact is, I can't really tell! So that speaks highly of your work, but your countless hours of tweaking may never be fully appreciated as they should. Technological advances steal our thunder all too often in my opinion. In other words: When you feel they're finished, set 'em free! They really do look good!