Inspirational or Crotchety?

In 1992 Paul Rand was pissed.  He wrote this article as a response to "trendy" design, which he viewed as a watered down version of actual ideas.  This article has some nice points about the actual purpose of graphic design if you can filter through all of the name dropping and professor-style language.  
This is really more of a rant than it is an inspirational piece, but there are still lessons to be learned.Here are some quick thoughts that I absorbed from this:

• Everything truly original contains allusions to past work but expands on the ideas of those works.  You can't create innovation out of nothing.
• Schools teaching social reform and morality rather than vocational skills do not prepare the students to actually execute social change.
• “Most [managers] see the designer as a set of hands -- a supplier -- not as a strategic part of a business.”
• The designer’s job is to compile and distill complex ideas and communicate them simply and effectively.  Not just to make cool stuff. Although that's also true.

Go ahead and take a few minutes and read it over. It'll be good for you. Clearly, all you sellouts care about is style over substance. Come up with an original idea already! Sheesh!