I suppose you're right. For reportage photography, or at a party or festival etc. you don't want to be faffing around with tripods. But then you'd be using fast film (and sometimes flash), right?
But for serious, top drawer pictures, which is what the original post was about, I stand by my assertion that a cheap camera and a sturdy tripod is better than no tripod on any camera.
Even on a sunny day, once you've got a polarizer on and maybe a neutral grad, with slow film and a small aperture, you can be looking at 1/8th sec or slower. I don't know anybody who can hold that steady.
A good rule to remember is that it's generally not a good idea to hand hold for shutter speeds below the recipricol of the focal length. For example, 50mm lens, 1/50th sec; 210mm lens, 1/200th sec