Using unity or a similar game engine has absolutely nothing to do with how "well crafted" your game is, nor does it tell if the developer wants to make a "quick buck".
I'm all for learning how stuff works and for taking pride in doing things well (showing appreciation for the craft, as you say), but how many people do you see making their own web framework to develop a web app? Maybe it makes sense in some cases, which is true for games as well. And it is even more true if your purpose is to learn, or to make something in a different way from established frameworks.
We stand on the shoulders of giants in lots and lots of ways, and we should make the most of it to continue to build great stuff (games, or anything else).
With that said, I stand by the opinion that knowing how the low-level stuff works makes you, if nothing else, more capable of using the higher-level stuff. We just need to choose the best way of doing what we want to do, with the time, money and tools we have :)
I'm all for learning how stuff works and for taking pride in doing things well (showing appreciation for the craft, as you say), but how many people do you see making their own web framework to develop a web app? Maybe it makes sense in some cases, which is true for games as well. And it is even more true if your purpose is to learn, or to make something in a different way from established frameworks.
We stand on the shoulders of giants in lots and lots of ways, and we should make the most of it to continue to build great stuff (games, or anything else).
With that said, I stand by the opinion that knowing how the low-level stuff works makes you, if nothing else, more capable of using the higher-level stuff. We just need to choose the best way of doing what we want to do, with the time, money and tools we have :)