I have heard alot of true web designers say "Thank God For Word Press, that old coding stuff was labor intensive", even THEY seem to appreciate it. Though Im sure there are exceptions.

you have more control with a handcoded site in some ways but with a well built standards compliant theme you bypass many hours of labour.

I think its a case of to each their own on this one but as im very busy i know which i'd prefer

I don't think it's any better - and personally if I had a $10,000 budget for a website, I'd rather spend 10% on the site design and 90% on copywriting than the other way around.

Keep in mind that most true web designers consider themselves "artists" and as such a hand coded website may validate better and might be "prettier" than a plain old template, but we all know the most successful website is the one that makes the most money.

That was one of the first and best lessons I learned when I first got into webdesign years ago and my thanks to Ken Evoy for his excellent (and now free) ebook "Make Your Site Sell"

Cheers,

Steve

+1 on the overkill point. I see so many squeeze pages being done with wordpress, when making a html/css/jquery page would be the best bet, and much easier and less complicated (No PHP/ MYSQL, no risk of being hacked, etc).

What do you mean by "true web designers"? The ones who spend the most hours in web design or the ones who make the most money selling web design?

I am also a web designer & coder but I don't think hand-coded is always better. It is better only at times when using it makes sense.

From my point of view, true web designers and marketers are those who optimize their process and reduce the amount of time that is required for their tasks as much as possible.

If a web design company or individual has their own custom built CMS that is easier to use than WordPress then of course they will want to use that one for their clients. But don't think of it as building everything from scratch for each client. It is not an efficient process.