I love the look of hand quilting and genuinely appreciate the talent, skill and time it takes to accomplish it, BUT ---
I had the same discussion with a quilting purist when I first started quilting. Her opinion was that unless a quilt was cut with templates with scissors, hand pieced, hand quilted, and hand bound -- it wasn't really a quilt. I knew nothing at the time, so I faithfully did what she said. That quilt is still unfinished, and I started it 20 years ago. I've only hand quilted half of it. But I've made maybe 150 since then with modern technology (sewing machine, rotary cutter, ruler,etc). There is room for everyone in the quilting world.
Another way of looking at this is: do tomatoes taste better if the field is plowed by hand with a stick instead of a tractor?