This is something of a neverending debate now amongst photogs...
In my opinion it's the final step. You work in Photoshop just the way a photographer would have worked in the darkroom when they shot film. The digital sensor can't possibly render in that file all the depth and contrast etc etc that you captured, nor will it get every color the way you wanted it every time. Of course you can become as skilled as possible at using your camera and get your metering, white balance etc as accurate as you can, but there is still going to be some finishing off that needs to be done, and with digital photography, we use tools like Photoshop to do that. It's not about dramatically altering an image (well, it can be, but it doesn't have to be), it's about making the image the best it can be.
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