Does Difficulty Define Aesthetics?

In the past, before the dawn of the digital age, the powers that be in the world of criticism and aesthetics had clamped a set of definitions and rules, which in hindsight, seem to be more related to the difficulty of manipulating images than about pure aesthetics.

I'm not going anywhere near the realm of editorial or journalistic ethics, this is about imagery as art.

Shooting with film sets certain limits on what can be accomplished reasonably quickly and at reasonable cost. It is then, far easier to work within the limits, and let the limits start to define the medium.

A photograph can now be manipulated in a staggering number of ways, any one of which, and possibly all, are as valid, and powerful as the "pure" photograph. Whatever that might be...