hey there Rob, i have not been ignoring your question, but it has taken me a week to mull it over. i have looked through past images, stared longly at new images, and racked my brain to find out why i use photoshop. i think, in looking at my older images, in which i payed close attention to the view finder (and ground glass-4x5) i think i was perhaps in some ways a better photographer. my images are well composed , well printed, thoughtful, exhibit some emotion, and really look good.
segue into the digital age, and my images turned really sloppy. i took a 2 week trip to europe, and i got a couple of dozen great images, but i shot 2000. 10% is i suppose a great percentage of images, but really, i have taken to photoshop playing to make more of the images that aren't really all that good better. browsing through my computer images, i have really settled into quantity over quality.
some of my photoshop stuff is really good looking, and i have received praise from friends as well as sold several of them, but all of the photoshop images have been rescued mediocre images.
like i mentioned above, i have been having fun exploring the electronic darkroom, and i think the end results are sometimes outstanding, but when it comes down to the original source images, they are frequently completely crummy. i stumbled across the original color snapshot of the Astronomical clock in Prague, which is by far my favorite photoshopped image, and it really is just a snapshot, much like any of the hundreds (or thousands) you could see on flickr.com.
this thread has really gotten me thinking about the viewfinder, and i think on my next outing, as an exercise, i will either shoot film, and only take one or two rolls, or take a 64 meg card in the ol' 30d.
i will probably ramble some more, but i thought i would get some thoughts up.
simple, practical, and works well: hmmm, it's kinda kooky, but it could be fun.
thanks for the insight and inspiration.