If one restricts their photography to static subjects, I agree straight out of the camera should (and many times is) be good enough.

However, I do take exception to your over generalization. I shoot action shots in varying light. Most of my outdoor images are pretty good without sharpening. But when I shoot in old gymnasiums or even new ones in which the lighting is poor, it requires a little touch up. The $6K cameras and $12K lenses you so easily dismiss do allow getting shots that might otherwise be missed. My new $6K camera allowed me to shoot in a poorly lit rodeo arena last night. The skies were dark, the sun set and clouds were plentiful. The LCD display looked completely black. I was trying to shoot moving bulls and horses. Believe it or not they do NOT cooperate and stand still so I can drop the shutter speed, ISO and shoot wide open to the extent sharpening and or noise reduction is not needed. In order to freeze the movement, I shot at 1/800th, f2.8 and ISO 12,800. I will need to run the images through noise removal software.

If I were to assume what equipment you are using, what subjects under what conditions I would be just as guilty as you are in making an uninformed statement. More power to you if you are happy with what you get and what you use. But take a step back and don't disparage those who push the limits and readily use some post processing software to get the results closer to what they envisioned. I work darn hard in sometimes less than ideal conditions to get shots I consider acceptable. If it takes some post processing to help so be it.

What is wrong?

If your fantastic super duper digital camera and hyper sharp lenses are so awesome why does everyone need AI sharpening and all these other dozens of programs to fix the utter failures of their equipment performance?

SOOC should be just fine from your $6K cameras and $12,000K lenses.
But apparently they are hardly sharp at all and desperately need lots of help.
Or is it such poor technique with all this super equipment that the photos need salvaging?

A friend wants to know.

What is wrong?

If your fantastic super duper digital camera and hyper sharp lenses are so awesome why does everyone need AI sharpening and all these other dozens of programs to fix the utter failures of their equipment performance?

SOOC should be just fine from your $6K cameras and $12,000K lenses.
But apparently they are hardly sharp at all and desperately need lots of help.
Or is it such poor technique with all this super equipment that the photos need salvaging?

A friend wants to know.

What is wrong?

If your fantastic super duper digital camera and hyper sharp lenses are so awesome why does everyone need AI sharpening and all these other dozens of programs to fix the utter failures of their equipment performance?

SOOC should be just fine from your $6K cameras and $12,000K lenses.
But apparently they are hardly sharp at all and desperately need lots of help.
Or is it such poor technique with all this super equipment that the photos need salvaging?

A friend wants to know.

After you take a photo ,there are 2 choices.Either leave it alone or try and improve it. I choose the latter but plenty would disagree...either because they cant be bothered, theyre too busy, or they dont have confidence in getting to grips with modern software. Its a personal choice.
What winds me up are the ones who say....theres a new model out which will take 24 frames per second as opposed to the 10 frames per second Im stuck with now. I need to get it.
If you cant get a bird in flight at 5 frames per second...you need to get another hobby.