Not OP and I won't dispute your point exactly but I'd like to point to a book called Pixel Logic wherein the author makes the same point regarding pixel art. Even though you'll be using stuff like the Lasso and Paint Bucket tools the big thing about pixel art is the manual control and precision of pixel placement (by hand) where you employ techniques like anti aliasing (again by hand). Advanced techniques like sub-pixeling when doing animation frames are another thing that makes sense only when you can place pixels one by one.