I like what it takes to get the image ...
So do I. I find most of what I get when snapping around at widely varying focal lengths with a zoom lens is crap. If you get worthwhile photographs doing that, more power to you.
It has nothing to do with getting "ultimate quality" or any such nonsense. It has to do with the fact that when I'm doing Photography, I'm concentrating on a specific subject matter, a specific way of seeing, and whether I have a zoom on the camera or a prime, I'm leaving it where it is and working the field of view, perspective, timing and framing to get what I want. It has much more to do with the fact that a fast, high quality prime lens is usually smaller, lighter, and handier to work with than a zoom, aside from that the quality is usually better.
Case in point: I can carry a 25mm f/2.8 lens set to f/4 by fitting a ZD 25/2.8 which weighs four oz and is less than an inch long, or I can fit a Vario-Elmarit-D 14-50/2.8-3.5 ASPH OIS which is 7 inches long and weighs more than a pound. Both return superb quality photos. I know which is handier, is going to intrude on the subject less, and I know which is more versatile. Handiness counts for a lot more than focal length versatility for me, most of the time.
My travel kit is usually one to three lenses: a nice kit is an ultra-wide, a normal and a short portrait tele.
When you suddenly see a deer nose to nose with a pheasant 100 yards away, you need something reasonably long . . . and you need it on the camera, not in the bag.
When I suddenly see a deer nose to nose with a pheasant 100 yards away and I'm
NOT out shooting wildlife with appropriate lenses on the camera, I enjoy the sight ... and then go back to doing Photography.
It's a matter of focus, attention and the level of opportunistic shooting appropriate to the Photography I want to do. When I look at exhibitions and photo books that are the most successful, the
vast majority show work made with one focal length, often one lens, with a small percentage of other fields of view used in to effect, express, specific things in contrast. The worst are the ones where every shot in sequence is made with a different focal length, as if the photographer had no idea in his/her head what sort of photographs they were making and what they were trying to express: they just zoomed in and out until they make a pleasing framing and pressed the button. Most such books are just a jumble of chaotic junk.