I'm kind of half and half. I'm not really sure.

Photo-manipulation has been around since the begining of photography: it is photography. It doesn't matter if it is darkroom or digital, something as simple as dodging and burning is photo-manipulation. The biggest difference between darkroom and digital work is skill level (much more skill is needed in the darkroom) and speed (digital is much faster). And just like anything else there is work ranging from the totally amazing to total crap.

I like it, though I RARELY see good manips. Just like Iggy-san said, they should be flawless to get my approval.

I think photomanips are only good when they're flawless, otherwise it can look cheap!! It's still art though!!!!

Just like any other form of art, it depends on the artist. Obviously it can be a rather gimicky way of making art. However, if someone invests their time and they really take into consideration various elements of their piece, then sure, I see how it can also become a great piece of art.

the artist can do anything that he wants in order to materialize the concept that he has in mind, the image that he wants to create. photomanipulation is more than ok.

when photomanipulation became popular, it was ok when in moderate dosage, but these days everybody can do it and they all overdo it, so it became cheap and, in most of the cases, crappy .
true photography rules!! .

I think manips can be art but only if it's "more than cut and past". If people only change colours or add girl on background, it's cheap.
Deviantart have many great photo manipulators, for example ~decrepitude , *enigma-astralis , =shutupandwhisper and many more.

like any other form, it depends who is doing it and how

I think it's art and I love it. I love being able to take many, many photos and fitting them together to form a composition as well as including other elements.

I do agree that there are a lot of photo-manipulations that leave me wondering.... They are pretty bad. I look at the ones posted in my portfolio (on my website, not here) and I feel pretty proud of most of them. Some I am going to redo, but a lot of time and effort goes into photo-manipulations. Especially if you are a perfectionist like me and the background needs to be fill cut out and there aren't any specks left of it.