speaking as a crappy photographer, I disagree. A nice camera with a reasonable lens makes up for a lot of photographer incompetence. I mean, yeah, my photographs, in general, turn out much worse than photographs taken by a person who knows what they are doing. However, my photographs taken with cheap point and shoot cameras, well, you can't even tell what the subject is half the time. A good camera brings the picture quality up to "you can read the serial number off the equipment if you zoom in" - I mean, the composition isn't any good, and I've got flash glare, but it's a /huge/ difference.

and, considering that for most things I take photos for (usually something I'm selling) have a relatively low 'good enough' bar, a good camera is the cheapest way for me to get above that bar.