Photorealism

Today I'd like to talk about Photorealism - a painting style of where the result looks very similar to a photograph.
I like Richard Estes a lot; he was actually one of the first painters that I liked, when I saw his paintings at about age 12. His paintings are sort of an improved, cleaned, shiny hyper-reality that I find yummy.
However, I don't like paintings where an artist perfectly reproduces a photo, and then seems to want credit/ praise for how much it looks like a photo. I can understand why such artists think they're great - 99% of people are probably stunned/impressed. (see "Wow that looks like a photo!")
I consider artists like this to be very talented craftsmen, but not strong creative artists.