I'm not entirely sure I'm qualified to comment on this but, in some instances, I do agree with you. There is a incy little it of me that thinks editing photos with anything more than a touch of cropping/lightening/darkening is cheating
(I suspect this is because I haven't learnt how to create dramatic effects with editing yet!
)
But, that said, many of the sky photographs I've seen here on Pixalo have the sky as the focal point and the foreground is really incidental to shot - just to give perspective to it. In that respect, why shouldn't it be emphasised to dominate the picture?
Photography is an art and each artist interprates what they see in their own way, in much the same way a painter might. Give the same photo to half a dozen people to edit and each one will edit it in a different way - but expressionist, abstract or whatever form the photographer chooses to show his final picture, it is still their own way of expressing what they see.
The development of editing software is taking photography to a completely new level - whether this is right or wrong perhaps depends on the circumstances - that incident recently where a photographer changed a "factual" picture to increase the smoke in the picture is perhaps a classic "wrong" way to use editing software - but like it or love it, editing is here to stay!