If the stalwart guardians of the past would've held absolute sway over "what is worthy art, and what is not", there would have been no Impressionism, Post Impressionism, and all that followed. Putt's is postulating like the French Academy of the 1880s.
Whoever named Photography was either a forward thinking genius, or an accidental one.
Translating the meaning as being "painting with light" is a manipulated definition, and probably a throw back to a time when people were struggling to associate something new with something known ... painting.
Bullshyt.
If that were true, then Typography would be painting with type ... and Videography painting with video.
The literal meaning of the suffix -graphy is "writing" or "art of writing" ... or "field of study" (as in "Geography").
Note that there are no such words as paintgraphy, or oilgraphy, or acrylicgraphy
Photography is an open ended concept with no limits except those imposted on it by those who would stifle it ... yet the "art of anything" is like a weed ... it'll find a way to grow.
The masters of photography should be the ones forwarding the art of it, not striving to choke it.
Who cares what the medium of capturing the photons and fixing them as an image may be? What does that have to do with the art of writing with light? The only thing that matters is light, and what you say with it.
Looking forward to organic sensors and whatever follows that ... in the meantime current digital is what is, and film still exists as a different choice.
-Marc