Cartier-Bresson's obituary in the Telegraph tells us this:

'Cartier-Bresson rigidly applied three rules to his work. He never contrived a photograph, used no artificial light and never retouched the results'.

The print he selected wouldn't have been manipulated anyway.

I did not say there is no creativity in handing on to a lab because you obviously choose lens, frame the subject, choose speed and aperture within the confines of those available at your ISO for the film in use, any filters you decide to use and of course when to press the button but you do preclude a whole host of other creative possibilities by using a Lab.
CB did not use a Lab but as Andy says used a team to hand print what was made available and of course he had the final say on what was released.
Duncan as you well know all Alex is doing getting wonderful exposures is shooting average tones and where they are not average relying on the exposure latitude to rescue things. Loses quality of course but is quick and easy and none demanding. As Alex says "Convenience wins for me" Never mind the quality feel the width.

Of course, should I want to achieve a particular artistic effect, I can always get the particular film frame scanned at a lab at 3k x 2k pixels or even 5k x 3.4k pixels (approximately) and edit them with all the convenience of Photoshop.

Lovely, Digital to the rescue eh!!!!! :D
And the convenience of Photoshop!!!!!!! :D
But I thought you said?????? :confused::p

To some extent yes--PS is far quicker and easier than a darkroom. However, I have yet to look at a photo developed at a lab and think 'that needs a makeover'.

Then I think you are too easily satisfied and need to be more critical to help develop your photography.

That's a fair point. I am usually critical of my own work, and various family members never refrain from giving their opinions over my work (once I had someone look over a roll and say that it was all **** apart from 1 photo). However I also believe that the vast majority of the creativity in the photographic process takes place when looking in the viewfinder, not afterwards. I'm sure many PS aficionados will disagree though.

I agree that "what takes place when looking in the view finder" is vital and indeed one of digitals downsides is the temptation to "rescue" a shot which is poor in the first place which is a big mistake. That is however more of an indictment of the photographer than the digital process itself.
Given a good shot in camera I want to maximise the potential and make the shot purely my work from start to finish. No excuse when it fails so I can learn and move on, real satisfaction when it works. You want the same thing when you choose focal length, shutter speed, aperture, whether or not to use filters and which ones and even the film you choose. I just want to do that and then take things further so I can draw out every last bit of how I want it to look and make it all my own work. I am not a PS aficionado (Elements in my case) and do not do any of the fancy stuff but only the equivalent of what I used to do in the dark room,crop, control contrast, burn, dodge and that sort of thing. I only do it to the few shots worth doing, the equivalent to your 3 or 4 shots a roll. That is not time consuming and any way I enjoy it, watching a picture "come alive" as I work on it. I just feel you could get so much more out of your photography if you took full control, it is very fulfilling to know the shot is unique and all my own work. Full creativity and digital just makes it so much easier to accomplish.