What a fascinating thread.
I don't think it was a knee jerk reaction to say the idea of "pixel purism" is pretentious crap. I mean, our Administrator himself said as much:
"What's fascinating for me for the average pixel artist regurgitating those philosophical bullet points (many of which I've endorsed in Pixelation for what will soon be a decade) is how self-delusional they are."
You might be misunderstanding me not so much in what I mean but the scope of my statement. There's certainly a lot of pixel art that is made outside of what you seem to consider 'proper' channels that I would consider extremely effective as art or that I find enjoyable or that touches me, take your pick. I didn't say that everyone is delusional about what it takes to make art in Pixelation, Pixeljoint, or wherever else. Most people *will* take the easy outs, but they did the same back in the demoscene and they did the same back in the whatever period of art history you want to go back to. Bullshitting is an art-form in itself.
There's many things more that could be touched upon but personally I find it most telling and interesting that the user STE 86 has an avatar of what appears to be a copy of a photo from Lethal Weapon, telling people here that basically 'they're doing it wrong'.
Which isn't to say that my observation above is a scathing remark meant to make you shut up, to the opposite, I'm very interested in whatever further you have to say, it's illuminating about many things. That pixel purism is a 00's thing I was aware of, it's good to see other points of view on that. That you would have killed for photoshop paintbrush I was aware of because the moment 'the scene' did get photoshop paintbrush, the 'pixely' aspect of it was 90% dead overnight, but it's good to hear your opinion on it. That there are however proponents or leftovers from the 80's mentality of 'cutting edge cgi' having passed through the pixel art realm that both claim their (largely copied or derivative or both) art is
better than the little nintendo-inspired sprites and game mockups and doodles that 00's kids post while being made with a completely different mentality and toolset but also that their said art is MORE true to some pixel ethos is something else I've noticed...