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I am very happy that my posting here initiated this discussion and I really enjoyed reading your arguments. I agree on many points you both are saying, tend to be on Aref's side of the arguments and still have some comments:
Creativity: what is this? Wikipedia says: "is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.". If we take this definition for valid leads me to conclude that using a toy camera, plastic lens or expired film is not an act of creativity itself. To my understanding creativity are acts based on ideas created in your mind. A random outcome of such lens or film is not creative. It is simply a random product. Now, you would say, but you know what such a lens or film like that would yield more or less as a result and you use these, to me tools, to achieve such a result. Here, I would say that the tool doe not matter as far as the picture expresses that what you had in mind that it should express. So, I am agreeing with Aref, it is a tool. There is also nothing that is better or less better in achieving such a result.
Art: Looking at Wikipedia once more it says that “Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. In its narrow sense, the word art most often refers specifically to the visual arts...”. By the way, it is interesting that this definition (if you continue reading it at Wikipedia) does not include photography! OK, this is one of thousand definitions of art. Assuming its correctness if a a blurred and vignetted picture is regarded as art then it does not matter how this art has been made, with a bad lens or a few photohsop layers. The act of creating these by the way per PS does not necessarily mean that everything is made using a macro. The photographer can process each picture individually. So what about Uniqueness? Perhaps it is important if you want to give that particular piece of work a value and values depend on quantity. Are Warhol's popart prints art? They are also a reproduction using silk screen at the “factory”. Anyway, many people do not agree on calling photography an art including a some photographers. I read once the retrospective of Jean Loup Sieff “40 years of photography” about his feelings about his work and photography he says in (page 67, the 60s, translated from the French text): “In these good old days very photography books were published and there were no galleries that exhibited photographs. At least photography concerned only photographers and it was not yet granted the gift of empoisened official recognition. It was not yet invaded by the theoritising gurus, the chatty apparatchiks and all sort of losers. We were among each other and we did not talk about art but we were talking about lenses, trips and hopes. We did not put on white gloves to look at our pictures that were still not “vintage” and we only wanted to work with pleasure.”. So, I regard him as a master photography and he does not seem roregard photography as an art. I agree with him. I only want to make pictures and enjoy doing this with any means or tools. And no, I am not making art. I only don't understand why I am looking forward to change the pictures and give them another dimension.
And Aref, you are presumin that the “artist” or let us say the photographer here is doing things by design I.e. he exactly knows how things should look while shooting them. Well, there might be some photographers doing so. Still, I tend to think that most people discover the potential of the picture afterward and emphasise certain features in it or discover its potential while processing it. Perhaps professionals work by design and most others not. I am one of the latter sort. I tend to explore the picture not only while shooting it as it certainly appealed to me then and I took it with a certain light and composition but also during the post-processing. Perhaps this is not serious work but this is how I am making my pictures and hope that I (and you) keep on enjoying that no matter which means are used.
Probably by citing Jeanloup I am putting myself and the friends discussing with me here under the definition of theoritising gurus or chatty apparatchiks. It is not my intention to offend anyone. I am simply looking forward to make some pictures, sometimes understand what I am doing and see your beautiful pictures through this marvellous medium, Ipernity.

Thank you both. By reading you you remind me of so many kinds of pleasure of making a picture. I find Aref's expression "we shouldn't transform it into dogma" very fundamental and in this context it does not contradict at all with Absche's "the journey is the reward" in the context explained. Yes, Absche, I fully agree with you this time regarding the thrill of making all these steps that take effort and need a lot of patience in order to get your images. Taking time to put the film into the camera, set the camera up, wait impatiently for the development of the pictures. All this is a great thrill and give the pictures such a great value, and what I mean here emotional value to the photographer who shot them. I also red about another famous photographer: Richard Avedon. He was given a digital camera and after a while he decided not to use this medium anymore. He was asked why and he said (translated from a German article) : "Today photographers make 3 pictures and then they run to the computer to see how they were. This way one is permanently interrupted and nothing can develop. I see on the pictures of today: They have no depth". In another discussion he said he did not like it because by suing it one has no time to think. So, I think this time to think is essential and taking it by doing these rituals you described is a key factor indeed. At the end we come to Sieff's words: "we only wanted to work with pleasure". So, we should make the image (using now Aref's word image and not simply picture) in the way you like as soon as it gives us pleasure.
I have my personal problem with the word "art" as I am not able anymore to distinguish what is art and what isn't. I thought that art is about (as Wikipedia above said):".... elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions". As many of the works of modern so called art do not have anything with the above mentioned aspects in my opinion I ceased to know what art is. I have the impression that it is now more about public relations and "selling ideas". So, as I cannot distinguish what art is and what isn't then I prefer to step back from it. Maybe the word art also induces high expectations in me that I cannot fulfil. So I prefer not to get near it.
Therefore, I am making images (often only pictures) that I enjoyed making them and looking at the result and I hope that somebody else enjoys looking at them too. I am also happy to have the chance to look at your images too, enjoy their beauty when they appeal to me and also learn a new way of looking at things.

Thank you!: Well you are mostly right about the availability of such corrected optic but probably the price was to high so many people had to buy the cheaper stuff (like Lomos), or maybe the fast stuff, as Polaroids. Probably most people shot their usual photos using such cameras without caring about quality or image characteristics. They wanted to make a picture of their child or dog and that was it. However, other people discovered the visual potential of these cameras and the atmospheres they produce.