There is a big difference though : jpeg is all about your choices at the moment of capture, and after that you're stuck (or nearly so) ; while contact printing is made after the fact, and can be redone at will to better convey the vision of the photographer...
You are far from stuck with jpeg… it can be further manipulated after the fact (though with less flexibility than RAW), much more than a contact print can.
But we are now engaged in semantic nitpicking and are further deviating from the point I tried to make with the comparison between jpeg and contact printing: that there are great images that do not require much, if any, manipulation in post-processing, and that even "great manipulators', like AA, used to do them.
Both jpeg and RAW are just tools, neither being superior to the other by itself, no more than hammer is superior to screwdriver by itself. Under certain circumstances, yes, each can be superior to the other, just like hammer is superior to screwdriver if the task is to hit a nail, and vice versa if the task is to unscrew a screw.
The same goes for manipulation if post-processing. Some images benefit from it, and some are great without it. Photoshopping is not inherently bad, and neither is non-photoshopping. Not photoshopping a visually lousy image is not going to make it inherently superior, just as photoshopping it wouldn't either (though it might make it a nicer-looking crap
). It is a mismatch between the purpose and the process that gives them both a bad name.