I don't really disagree with many of your points, but I do think that scenes lit for the photography often look as if the photographer is taking a picture of their lighting and thereby disengage the viewer's emotion. I acknowledge however that is practical, sometimes the only way, to get a picture.
I regard all light added for the sake of photography as bad, especially flash, especially direct flash. Professionals use it because it is easy, but, in my view, it never looks as good as ambient, always betrays itself.
I have to differ with your opinion here. All of the pictures that I have taken in total darkness are quite poor.
Of course, in "total darkness" you can't see either. Obviously people have added light since the dawn of fire for seeing, so objecting to all added light for any purpose would be silly.
Light is the currency of photography.
This is my main point. Most professional use of light looks to me like an inflated currency. The real thing connects the viewer with the scene, many times, in subtle emotional ways that photographic light devalues. Of course if, professionally, one needs to document an unlit scene, then for such mundane purposes, which much of professional photography is, whatever its pretensions, one needs to add light. In my view almost all professional photography is a form of documentation, no matter how it sees itself.
Professionals use lighting so they can get a picture that earns them money. And good lighting isn't easy, it's a whole extra load of technique.
Yes of course, "to earn them money" perfectly respectable. I think that having learned the technique many professionals think that it affirmatively distinguishes their work from that of amateurs when in fact their work would be better if instead they concentrated on the harder task of learning to shoot, whenever possible, without it.
The prevalence of artificially lit shots in advertising and its ilk has caused a degradation in taste in the masses, in my view, a degradation into this commercial artificiality. The worst effect is in wedding photography where people think it is their opportunity to look like a glamour shot. Photographers, of course, pander to this. In some ways only amateurs can afford the better look of ambient light.
As a consequence, while acknowledging the potential for many bad photos in all shooting, I generally prefer good amateur snapshots in ambient light, to most professional scenes shot with photographic lights. In this regard and connected with the OP, I do think that the steadily higher ISO shooting capabilities we are seeing today opens possibilities for gradually changing the prevailing culture's views on this topic.
Being able to shoot pictures in ambient light is useful, and, many times, does allow for a more meaningful photograph. But there are so many lousy pictures taken in "available light" (Is that an outdated '60's term? My head is full of them.) that I really am not a fan of it.
Of course there are many bad pictures taken in all kinds of light. The opportunity to take bad or boring pictures is unlimited. Even a fan of ambient light, as I am, might agree that there will be more worse ones taken for the sake of those few that are far better, and yet consistently choose never to use photographic lighting.
