Hhmmmm .... interesting discussion. Is photography a form of art requiring an accurate capture of a moment in time? I'm sure this can only be answered by first identifying what the objective of taking the photo is?
Manipulation of photo's has been occurring since the first photo was taken, so there has never really been an 'old' school. If you can get a beautiful 'out of the camera' shot, perfectly composed (which I imagine also means no cropping), perfectly exposed, and your subject is happy with the embarrassing pimple on their chin being captured for eternity, then I guess no manipulation is required and you can get rid of the laptop
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But I don't think it can be generalised that post processing or changing a photo to 'improve' it is cheating or cutting corners, in many cases there is nothing easy about doing work on a photo after the fact and it may be that the objective is to create something that can't be captured straight' out of the camera'.
However, where I do agree is if the photo is manipulated to 'hoodwink' the audience into believing something that is not true - like many a fashion magazine - this is a different issue, this is more akin to fraud.
I would imagine Andy Warhol (like his work or not) would take some exception to being called a cheat when he manipulated the photo of Marilyn Munro to create a pop art classic.
Again a very interesting discussion, for me, manipulate away if the resulting image is pleasing to the eye and portrays what you want it to, but don't get lazy with the camera hoping to fix it later, the better the shot up front 'out of the camera' the happier you will be no matter what, and there is always a level of satisfaction if you can catpure what you want by good photographic technique and knowing how to use the expensive camera equipment you have. I'm still yet to have much luck with that myself!
Just my 10 cents worth.
Rich
PS: I do like this section of the forum, there have been some great discussion and perspective provided.