I am extremely offended by the "group projects are for lazy teachers" comments. Any good teacher understands that some group members do not work as hard and grades with individual rubrics so the working students are not penalized by the other student's lack of work. Participation is always a part of the grading rubric. Most of the time rubrics even ask group members to rate other group member's contributions to the project. Sometimes I had to have students work in groups due to lack of materials, etc. in my science classroom. Most teachers see 120 - 150 students a day and if materials are consumable, you have to group in order for everyone to experience the learning situation you are trying to provide. I can't tell you how many times I have purchased materials and equipment with my own money just to have enough for group projects - no way could I afford to buy for 120 - 150 students. Any good teacher would never let a group project reward poor student work or penalize good student work.
When a teacher is asked to write a reference for a student to go on to college, group participation observations are always included in the references. It is a valuable experience to work in a group, isn't that what we end up doing on our jobs the rest of our lives? How many of your co-workers pull their own weight?
Bottom line, a good teacher is aware of what is going on in their groups and uses a rubric to grade fairly. They are not all being "lazy". Try going home after a long day and spend 3-4 hours at home grading 120-150 projects or tests every night. Even if you put students into groups of 3 or 4, there is still a lot of grading to do each night.