I remember various interesting articles by Michael Reichmann saying basically this: don't fear to manipulate and to shoot like crazy.
I'll put it that way: I think Russ philosophy to leave things as they where done is excellent when you want to improve skills and visions.
It's also very rtespectfull to the moment, and that certainly has some value.
IMO, the mistake generally attributed to manipulation is that it leads to false, or in other term, that autenticity is linked to you-got-it-on-shot.
In my current assistant work, I've been learning from the masters that they don't hesitate to burn an extremely high number of pictures, those men who knows very well how to take pictures are actually shooting like crazy, and they would choose 10 images among 800. (just watch Peter Lindberg in action and you'll see. Now, nodody would say that Lindberg doesn't know how to take picture. He has the technique extremely well mastered for ages, but he shoots an incredible number of frames/minute). Why? because it actually makes the difference. The genious has very little to do with "I got it at the first frame".
Remember actually a Russ comment about that fact when I asked a question about the "secret sauce" of the masters. They shoot really a lot.
Same about manipulation. Manipulation is really interesting because if there is an art of the shooting in action and get it right, there is also an art of seeing something in a picture after the action.
If you manipulate because you are insecure and unexperienced, better being hard with oneself and decide to not manipulate until you are ok in the shooting.
But if you manipulate consciously and know why and what you are doing, doors are welcome opened.
At the end, what matters is the image. When I watch photographies, I've never found myself thinking "if this is a crop or what grade of pp was involved..." I just watch the pic, and the pic is the only existing thing actually. The rest is just speculation.
Curiously, the P.P in fashion is not what I thought it was, many many things, in fact most of the imagery is done with lights in the plateau. PP is there for other reasons that has to do with the overall context but not the picture itself as a photograph.
In the case you mention, I would certainly leave the pic as it is. I don't even noticed the irony before you pointed it, and that has to do with what keep our attention is completly different, it depends on each one constitution (cultural codes, conditionning, mind settings etc...), and as Mike said, on what you want to say.